The Odd Couple
by tremor3258
Summary: Entry for the Unofficial Literary Challenge 13 - two very different captains butt heads during the Iconian War.
1. Chapter 1 - Odd Navigation

"The Odd Couple"

By Tremor3258

Set in the Iconian War, probably before "Broken Circle" but after "Time in a Bottle". Personal timeline wise anyway. Time travel's bad enough before the history eraser button comes into play. This was an entry for ULC #13 on the official forums, prompt 2 – "The Odd Couple"

Lieutenant Commander Tervan of the _U.S.S. Aquila_ was doing his level best to focus on what was important, during the current issues with the Iconians. The tea helped, of course.

"Maintain current speed at half-impulse," he ordered, "Maintain probe launch rate towards mines on revised trajectory based on data." The Rigelian sipped his tea and studied the tactical plot. The small _Nova_ class had excellent science labs, but at its size, they could only do a few things. The passive capacities of its secondary and primary deflector combination were excellent, and a small occlusion in the probability cone for possible Iconian mines was a worthy risk for keeping an eye on the far more interesting background radiation anomaly in the Draco dwarf galaxy.

After all, the Iconians were winning. Why would they even bother spreading terror weapons? This was one of dozens of potential warp-out points to reorient and get a navigation and timebuoy fix. Once, there had been a refueling station in the area, and its wreckage was still scattering out from the destruction of its fusion reactor by the Iconians two weeks ago. Fortunately, the debris was beyond the usual traffic zone at this point, but they'd laid some warning markers, tedious and simple work.

He wouldn't complain exactly. The Federation depended on Starfleet for rescue and traffic control just as much as dramatic space battles, and it was a logical use of a small, fragile ship in these times. Oh, his ship was in all qualification ranges for tactical, but the tip of a spear was a brutal place to be, and no place for one Walking, either, in his opinion. "Violence was the refuge of the incompetent", he'd heard once.

Starfleet agreed with him, and they'd slowly and quietly been making their way through the war zones. This was Federation space once – primarily Bolian mines and trade depots, and it would be once again, and a ship that would be illogical in combat could prepare for the Federation victory.

"Captain," Ensign Torek, Vulcan, promising future command material, and currently his tactical officer, "We are receiving a distress call at bearing three-six mark two-seventeen. Civilian passenger freighters under attack by a Herald strike group." He was hunched over the board, apparently eager to have something to do and was back-ranging the trace.

"Rebroadcast on secure channels to Alliance Command," Tervan said sharply. "Estimated time to point of origin given current subspace conditions?"

Riiku, the smooth skinned Saurian at the helm answered with commendable promptness. "Sixteen hours at maximum non-emergency speed. Six at maximum survivable stress" Alertness to surrounding conditions in standard conditions showed potential for being promoted out of a piloting slot, and Tervan made a mental note to put a favorable comment in her personnel file.

"Continue rebroadcast – there are ships that will be able to reach survivors before us," Tervan said.

Riiku hesitated, then spoke, "Captain, the Iconians may ignore escape pods. Six hours would greatly increase the ease of rescue operations."

"Or," Tervan said sharply, "the Iconians may still be engaged in clean-up operations. We will arrive with strained deflectors and minimal power reserves, and be unable to even run." The Saurian stiffened and stared forward. Tervan felt a trace of amusement. Were they hoping for meaningless heroics? Had they checked his record?

He'd spent ten years reaching this command, passing all his evaluations – even the test of command had proven navigable to an organized mind, with the experience of hundreds of Starfleet captains to be applied. And though the _Nova_ -class was a little snug, such matters were easily placed below surface concerns by the Vulcans and Rigelians who made up her crew, free to fill their aspirations to serve the Federation without too much interaction with the noisy and disorganized member races.

And, the short missions, delivering rescue supplies, coordinating disaster relief, and the (now, sadly) less-common planetary survey gave him time for his side-project into mapping the small gravimetric eddies and anomalies common in any well-travelled region. Any ability to improve navigation and ship speed helped bring the Federation closer together, and was also, logically, one of Starfleet's important activities, in peace or war.

It'd been his thesis as well. While the close-range sensors looked for metal or magnetic suspensions, the subspace array was free for a bit of larger research.

And occupied thusly, they could pay less attention to distress calls they could hear but would never be able to reach. The ship was too slow, and the Iconians were able to strike too quickly. They simply relayed them on to other authorities and continued their work, as dependable as they could.

And besides, they were only in a small survey ship, not one of the modernized battleships the shipyards had been producing rapidly. Even the Iconians were unlikely to deal with something so minor, and if they did, they were almost certainly dead, so it was a matter unnecessary of consideration.

So, the work continued. Minutes of nothing aggressive, highlighted by tiny variations in the galactic medium millions of light years away.

"Captain," said his tactical officer, Ensign Torek eventually, "We have a priority-coded request for navigation information and a rebroadcast request from an Alliance ship."

"Send it," Tervan responded, and gave it no more mind. Some mission was coming to a conclusion no doubt.

Thirty seconds later, space screamed as gateways erupted all around the _Aquila_. Unheard on the red alert, Tervan's tea cup shattered on deck.

************  
Approximately five minutes earlier time-wise, and fifteen light-years or so as the Warbird flew, things were perhaps more exciting. A dozen small freighters carrying refugees had been routed together by some idiot Admiral An'riel seh'Virinat was hoping she'd be allowed, politically, to have shot. At least that many ships together had managed a distress call out, but they should have never been gathered enough to become a target.

The Iconians, true to form, had slammed into the concentration of fleeing civilians, but they couldn't resist playing with their food. The _Simurgh_ had been close enough, with some considerable effort on the part of Veril, her chief engineer, to make it with four of the ships still relatively intact. Propelled on a wave of profanity from two Reman dialects, and radiation cascading from nacelles, the _Caprimul_ had dropped a minute outside combat range from a small squad of a _Quas_ and a handful of _Baltim_ popping in and out of reality.

The _Quas_ was taking pot-shots at the freighters' engines, antiprotons smearing gamma radiation, contaminating the next generation even if the survivors were rescued. An'riel felt a twinge in her gut at that, these were Bolians, not her people, but even the Tal Shiar she would not condemn to end their bloodlines.

An'riel would normally consider the odds fairly decent, but the freighters weighed against her. "Any luck at all establishing a tactical link?" she asked, studying the holographic main display. Ship positions on it stuttered and telegraphed positions, any data from the freighters was being relayed on a vocal link, and their rapid transit and Iconian interference was polluting their own sensors. The friendly freighters themselves showed a hash of status codes indicating systematic and cascading failures. There had been almost a dozen, but five were left.

The Trill shook his head, "The Iconians aren't having any trouble keeping those tubs completely locked down. About the only things their engineers can manage is containment, and I've got some reports they're being boarded. I'm not getting any bandwidth anywhere and Starfleet's grabbed so many technicians lately they haven't even been able to tune their dampers." The Trill tapped controls, shifting channels, and listened on a directional pickup.

Tovan, at tactical, cursed briefly. "Sorry," he said as heads turned, and more formally, "Cruiser just locked weapons on us and the _Baltims_ just changed their attack patterns. Energy gateway opening. Subspace gateways opening. They've learned enough to go to attack posture quickly, at least." Portals opened up on the near side of the freighters as the raiders angled, taunting. The portals would break up any attack run, and despite all the Alliance's efforts, there was no indication where an opened subspace gateway would deposit its travelers, yet.

Jalel reported as Tovan finished, updating status indicators on the displays, "I've verified on all the freighters, they're reporting Herald forces falling back on all ships, and retreating to gateways." He frowned, "Even without allowing for exaggeration, the enemy count is low." Jalel winced briefly. "Veril is reporting singularity circuitry still recovering from warp, at least a minute until we can begin charging."

"All right," An'riel said, "Perhaps Imperial Intelligence was right and the Heralds are reaching the limits of their Reserves." She smiled, briefly at that. "But the Republic would still like to verify, sensor priority after targeting is for emission profiles and energy signatures." Her tactical and science team signaled affirmation. One of the worst problems for fleet morale was that simply they had very little idea how _well_ they were doing against the Heralds, when ships could disappear and then reappear in attacks hundreds of light years away. Factor in the easy manufacture of ships like the _Beltims_ and tracking fleet strength was nearly impossible.

"But there are a half-dozen ships calling for vengeance, so these Heralds must end here. Battle alert." The chimes sounded, formally, the ship was already ready for combat but there was a comfort to such theatrical gestures.

It also gave her time to wonder on her luck. If they'd arrived late, vengeance was relatively easy in a battleship against the opposition. But they'd arrived early, and so the responsibility to the survivors gave the Heralds a better chance of surviving. The Republic could _not_ ignore innocent victims, even when they probably would be unable to save them.

And there were no reserves in the sector to use either to attack or draw off the Heralds. A few hundred survivors were worth risking their ship, but she could not expose Federation fixed assets that had remained unassaulted to attack. Veril was working miracles on decontamination, but they didn't have warp or singularity tricks at the moment to cut the distance where their cannons were most effective.

"Jalel – coordinate evacuation with our transporter rooms. Also - what bounced the signal to us? Are any ships available?" An'riel asked. She added, "Engage tactical mode, prepare for close-range combat – ready cannons for rapid-fire. Satra, best estimates for transporter range and time."

The ship rattled as it focused purely on combat – they _really_ needed some proper downtime; this was not a long-range exploration vessel with plenty of endurance. But it held, for now. The tactical display updated – half the Raiders popping into subspace and returning to reality near them, the others jumping backwards farther out of their weapon range, but still in range on the freighters.

Satra, tapped her console – months against the Elachi meant she knew how to breakdown a transporter evacuation like the back of her hand. "Nine lifts at minimum, with all the radiation, forty-five seconds to minimum transporter range. Five seconds to weapon range."

"Ready EPS induction tap against _Baltim_ – closest target. Helm, bring us up six degrees and be ready for it to break," An'riel said. "Let us hope if we look ready for a dogfight we can break into close range – Jalel, how long do they need to prepare?

"They're not ready to evacuate. They want us to clear a warp exit corridor now that the Heralds have stopped boarding," the Trill said glumly.

There was silence at that, briefly, broken by the sound of the polaron cannons opening at maximum fire – one of the _Baltims_ glowed, shuddered, and collapsed. "Are their sensors work- no, cancel that," An'riel said angrily. "Send them our specifications, we certainly have the space and capacity! And strongly recommend, based on our tactical assessment: that they evacuate! And use Federation Standard!" she said, as an afterthought.

Jalel listed on a local pickup for a while, and then replied, "Admiral, they prefer to take their chances over boarding an Alliance military vessel."

That was greeted by silence, followed by a set of warning chimes as the Raiders opened fire. The Iconians had an advantage, but "Target priority by proximity! Tachyon beam, EPS induction. All cannons, rapid-fire," An'riel snapped. "Transfer the strategic assessment to my console. Tovan, you have the board – try and drift the dogfight towards the freighters. Transporters have maximum priority for computer and power demands."

An'riel had only glanced at the current status of Alliance forces briefly to confirm they were the closest available ship before responding. They'd been a sector over, slinking their way to a hidden dock for some downtime. The _Simurgh_ 's Solanae-derived tricks and Federation-provided quantum slipstream emitters had given them the best response speed, though, and that had been the important thing a few minutes ago.

Unfortunately, things were stretched pretty thinly in both sectors. A few ships engaged in covert or local defense operations – a response fleet in full retreat from a major colony; they were in no shape to help. A few science outposts that hadn't been gobbled up yet. Actually, come to think of it, what _had_ been in shape to relay that signal? "Computer," she said quietly, "Display communications routing table for received distress signal four-seven slash four, please."

She'd been enjoying the distributed control setup of _Simurgh_ 's bridge; a dozen wells of controls surrounded by holograms in a sea of grey metal. It came in advantage again, she opened a private channel to Jalel. "Lieutenant Commander, has Starfleet reported any planned offensives in this sector in our data update?"

Jalel, elite officer that he was, took a moment to verify before stating the obvious, "I wish, Admiral. We're down to deep raids at best and supply runs of medical aid along this entire cluster."

"A _Nova_ planetary survey vessel relayed the distress call. They must be an injured heavy ship using a fake transponder to be this deep. Send a request for a wide-broadcast of targeted navigation data for warp-in. Whatever battleship is there, should reply if it is not on a priority mission," An'riel decided, "We will catch them in between our talons, and we should be able to expedite their warp drive repairs afterward."

Jalel nodded, and An'riel refocused on the battle. Two more raiders had been shattered, but there were always more – the Iconians seemed to roll them out like fighters from a carrier bay. One more freighter had been picked off, antimatter containment either collapsing from damage or its engineering team losing out to the Iconian's virii. Perhaps four, maybe as many as eight hundred more gone in a flash of light, and she could, Elements help her, give them no more acknowledgement then that if she was to save any of them.

She snapped orders, small adjustments to their attack approach and utilizing _Simurgh_ 's marvelous and overtaxed systems that much more finely as they slowly clawed their way towards transporter range. Every meter was paid in Heralds, but cost them time, energy, programming reserves… which equaled that much fewer Bolians. This was the calculus of lives that had kept her going through the early days before the Republic had been recognized by the great powers, where saving anything as worlds died was considered a victory for those who wanted to live free under the Raptor's Wings.

It had, apparently, merely been _practice_. But it had been useful and effective, at least today. She felt the change before it showed on scanners, the tempo of battle suddenly slacking, the Raiders breaking off attack runs early.

Satra reported it first, "Long-range gateways opening – the cruiser is retreating, Admiral!" A moment later, the galaxy-pattern of the Iconians Sphere-protected gateways made itself visible to the eyes. The Raiders gutting the freighters ceased and pulled back towards the gateway as well, seeking larger game. A brief cheer went up.

"Emergency evasive power, current course for five seconds, then turn one-eight-zero. Revert from tactical mode, ready torpedoes and cannons for scatter volley. Start gravity well induction," An'riel said calmly. _Simurgh_ lurched, briefly free of Newtonian physics as it dashed free of melee and spun, deploying projectors and advanced sensors to capture and twist a knot of gravitons among themselves until reality shrieked. The Raiders turned, but were unable to escape gravity's embrace, shear wracking at their hull integrity.

To add to the humiliation of the natural laws of the universe, high-speed torpedoes and heavy polarized energy bolts smashed into the cluster of Herald ships, ripping open more micro-singularities. The combined tidal effect overwhelmed containment on one, then a second _Baltim_ , their warp core detonations spilling over the other weakened ships, and finishing them in a titanic wave of fire.

Three freighters remained, leaking plasma and spot fires erupting and then ceasing as free oxygen was consumed, and _Simurgh_ , white hull covered with scars from spot burn-throughs on the shields, lights flickering in several sections as polymorphic virii were wiped out, but still intact with some fight left.

"Drop shields, tell Veril to expedite radiation cleanup to prepare for brief period of high warp speed. Work with medical – full power to hazard emitters to expedite isolation and containment of EPS point overloads. Get Hiven to assemble a team to convert environmental sections over to Bolian standards," An'riel said, radiating calmness. "We can prepare a full damage report later." Circuits were overloaded through the outer wings, shields were busy cycling, power levels were fluctuating, and the warp coils were still cooling off, but _Simurgh_ had chosen its name well, coming through the fire again. In the grand scale of battles, this was barely a skirmish. It would be if they could get to a repair bay.

She had other points of Duty than just her ship though. "Tovan," An'riel said calmly, "Lock weapons on the freighters, and ready security teams for boarding, if needed. Jalel, get me visual communication please to the remaining ships." Given that the Admiral had apparently scared off a Herald squadron with force of presence, even Jalel did not protest this violation of Starfleet protocols.

Fortunately, they weren't Starfleet. The captains of the refugee ships apparently remembered this as well as they opened their protest and immediately stopped, seeing the ridged brows and pointed ears of the majority of the _Simurgh's_ crew, either Rihannsnu or Reman. The bridge was dark, alien in origin, and the dark skinned captain at its center sat leaning forward, head resting on folded fingers, waiting in anticipation.

Silence was as good an opening as riposte, one of her debate teachers had said. "Captains. You are to have your crews abandon your ships and come aboard. Your preferences and feelings of the Alliance fleet's combat effectiveness are immaterial. Failure to comply will result in my being forced to bring your shields down and force compliance. You have thirty seconds to begin evacuation procedures."

The one on the right spoke up, "The Federation will never allow an act of piracy to-"

An'riel cut him off, "Captain, I am sure the Republic will arrive at an appropriate figure of compensation. You are welcome to submit your complaints to your representative on the Federation Council and have a Board of Inquiry opened into my actions, should you attempt to continue. However, without even a detailed sensor scan I can see how poorly your warp engines are responding – do you believe in your current state you have the engineering capacity to change your warp signature before the Heralds track you down again? Ten seconds"

Silence met that. A moment later, with a brief look towards each other, the shields on the freighters dropped. An'riel dropped the link. "Begin evacuation, order security crews in transporter rooms to assist and initiate triage. Satra, you are released to sickbay. Prepare a casualty list as soon as possible. Jalel – pass navigation broadcast from the _Aquila_ to navigation to prepare to assist. Tovan, log the location of the freighters – we will leave them unscuttled, perhaps the Heralds will ignore them and their captains' will be at ease." She checked her board, "Rest easy children, we have a brief rest but we must leave within five minutes to balance our luck."

Even total shock didn't last long to a Rigelian. "Red alert. Emergency Evasive pattern alpha-three," Tervan ordered as the bridge's lighting shifted to alert status. "Transfer power allocation to defensive plan two. Prepare sensor dispersion probes. Return fire, priority to targeting incoming probes. Torek, generate a threat assessment." Shields snapped on automatically as the first beams struck them, the lurch of impact overwhelming even the rumble of the impulse engines reaching full speed. Shields strained, but held, barely, from the first wave. Phasers lashed back, barely warming the first of three enemy cruisers.

He tapped on his command console – updating the log to confirm procedure had been followed by his officers, he would not have them disparaged in death. All was approaching battle readiness on the _Aquila_ , for all it would do them. Simply in the raw physics of energy, they were absolutely outmatched. He checked his orders were followed, and frantically looked if there was some gap left uncovered they could spin their warp drive up in.

"Redistributing shields – overall at forty-three percent, shields three and five have temporarily collapsed. Radiation damage reported through section seven on deck five!" Torek said with the expressionless urgency that passed for panic among Vulcans. "Three _Quas_ -class cruisers, at least eight _Baltim_ raiders, so far. Assigning identifiers to enemy ships on tactical plot."

"Adjust our vector fifteen degrees to starboard," Tervan said, "Prepare probes for sensor scramble package on cruiser target Beta." They didn't have guns, they didn't have shields, and they didn't have the warp capacity to sprint away, but by all that was just, his team could rig a fake sensor signature set. And it would be easier if they could drift the middle and starboard cruiser together a bit closer.

Some luck was still with them, and their probe, equipped as perfectly as his crew could manage for local conditions, shot at high speed, burning its impulse engine out in seconds to avoid counter-fire, and then exploding in a wave of mass and subspace-shadows, throwing dozens of _Aquilas_ onto Herald targeting scopes and throwing wave-guides out of alignments. Weapons fired wildly across space, a few impacting other Herald ships, but mainly, not hitting the real _Aquila_.

"Navigation calculations, find minimum point where we can prepare for warp-out. Any direction will suffice – Starfleet tactical briefings indicated the Heralds rarely pursue via warp," Tervan said, sweating slightly.

Riiku reported, "Navigation report still running, Captain – I have a complete view of local space out sixteen light seconds. Submitting three best vectors and originating points for minimum interference with light boundary to primary tactical."

"We're still transmitting that status report?" Tervan said, concerned. He'd not considered it was on-going, just one of the many requests of the larger Starfleet.

"Yes sir, on high-band encrypted," Riiku said without worry. The Saurian was doing her job, and knew her captain had a better grasp on the strategic situation. He was the one on board who had a chance of getting them out of this.

"Sensors – overlay the vector for the navigation request on tactical," Tervan ordered. "Change encryption to second alpha set, and await response." The second round of fire came in, attenuated by the distraction they had caused, but still blowing down the port shield. This was _not_ in the tactical manuals.

"Correct response received," Riiku stated, holding, barely, onto her station through the fire. "They are requesting a hazardous terrain update for our current location." She tapped her console in irritation once the dampers stabilized, "Timestamp's odd – they must be at high warp."

"What?" Tervan said, as his mind switched gears. "Label the Herald ships as radiation sources and transmit – bring us onto their approach vector." Tactical showed that the Heralds had thinned their own numbers and were still confused, but some of their light units were on the approach. "Torek – maximum array fire, clear away the probes nearest to us."

The Vulcan bent to his task – flooding power to the phaser arrays, emitters firing sequentially as targets briefly locked. The Vulcan methodically switched through the targets. Tervan opened his mouth to yell as one of the two cruisers firing blindly appeared on the viewscreen, but was too late before the phasers lanced out.

Now knowing exactly where the _Aquila_ was, the Heralds targeted it with renewed fury, and what shields they rebuilt collapsed under the strain.

"Ensign Torek!" Tervan said fiercely, "Stand down from tactical and let your relief take over." Torek's face was smooth as he stood to comply, though other bridge officers shifted uneasily.

Before Torek could move away to be replaced by another Ensign, the ship gave an especially fierce lurch, and he fell against the console, arm breaking with an audible snap. Ensign Salmer bent to help him, tactical console beeping for attention but ignored for the moment.

"Captain, helm is not responding – we're in some sort of generated ion field and the impulse coil is overloading!" Riiku said excitedly. "Our speed is at three percent of full impulse. Orders?"

"Sensor officer, can you tell which ship generated it?" Tervan said, mind clicking through possibilities. He'd heard some specialty ships had been outfitted to disrupt impulse drives for intelligence operations, but it hadn't worked its way down to line briefings yet. He grabbed the arms of his chair as another beam hit somewhere on the ship, hearing a deep thud being conducted through the ship's hull.

"Negative, Captain, but the field appears to not be perpetuated – field strength is decaying – given time, engineering may be able to tune our engines to compensate," the sensor officer reported. Judging by the current shower of sparks, engineering had its own problems. "Herald attacks slowing, sir."

"Prepare for boarding combat," Tervan said, automatically. "Riiku, did the Alliance ship give any sort of ETA?"

"I'm not sure, Captain, it was all via navigation protocols," the Saurian answered miserably. "But it may not do any good - their reference frame to Newtonian space has drifted – the timestamps on the messages were a minute in the future."

"All remaining power to shields and ready to link tactical computers on Alliance protocols," Tervan said, trying to regain his mask of command.

Torek had finally gotten out of the way, and Salmer was able to sit down and bring their rudimentary tactical systems back under control. "Captain, tactical got a data packet update on side-bad with recommended shield and communication frequency settings."

"Implement," Tervan said, and turned to look at his sensor officer, who bent over to check the ignored long-range sensors. "Captain – gravimetric array is picking up a subspace energy spike. Something is breaking the FTL barrier, and it's absolutely massive."

"On screen," Tervan said – and the screen switched from tactical to show a flash of light as a starship returned to reality. "Not the _Enterprise_ , then," he said aloud, faintly disappointed.

It was a Republic warbird, oversized compared to Federation tech for its power, and the usual overdone avian styling, their singularity cores forcing plenty of open space into the hull design. This one wasn't blood-colored, at least. The cream-colored plating was burned and discolored in places, apparently having seen recent action, but it seemed intact from quick inspection. After another second's inventory, he placed it as one of the knock-offs of the Federation's _Dyson_ program, the fleet support ships that had gotten rammed through as 'science destroyers'.

Tervan admired a very neat warp insertion – whoever piloting knew their ship, but wondered what they were thinking at arriving at such close range when power was still flowing from the warp drive to shields and engines. Then, things then got very busy for several seconds, and Tervan was only able to reconstruct the sequence in memory later.

Given the positioning data fed earlier, the warbird had been able to drop into weapon's range, catching the Heralds by surprise, and space shimmered as several Republic battleships were summoned into being as photonic allies, providing cover as their weapons lanced into the Heralds. The Aquila's tactical board fairly whined as the warbird swept space with a high-energy sensor sweep, followed by a blast of tachyon and proton energy lanced from the main deflector at the center Herald cruiser. The _Quas_ 's shields shuddered and inverted, shields spilling energy out that the _Aquila's_ grid, having been forewarned, was prepared to receive, restoring their shielding.

Even as that pulse rang out from the _Quas_ , a singularity appeared behind it, tearing at the Herald ships that had been gathering to board. Space itself began to spark – some new technique Tervan wasn't familiar with, though it didn't seem healthy for anything material in range. The warbird's signature spiked as it dumped power to weapons – and opened up with a polaron barrage and salvos of proximity torpedoes.

The shielding matrix of the Herald ships had been hit from an unexpected angle, and the matrix itself had been heavily disrupted by Romulan tricks – they offered little resistance as swarms of torpedoes exploded, and containment of the smaller ships was overwhelmed, adding to the chaos. In a blaze of radiation and confusion, hundreds of Iconian battle thralls died in seconds.

The young bridge officers on the _Aquila_ could only stare as the situation went from death to victory in a scant few seconds. Tervan felt a spike of jealousy he worked to suppress at the speed of the warbird's systems and its crews' reaction speed as a dozen systems coalesced into an angel of death in mere moments.

"Incoming hail," Riiku reported. Tervan nodded, and a creature with unusual coloration for a Romulan – dark-tan and auburn-haired, though the brow ridges indicated no unusual cross-pollination appeared in her family tree.

"Admiral seh'Virinat," she identified herself, "Of the _R.R.W. Simurgh_. Many thanks on behalf of our crew for your response, Captain. You saved hundreds of lives with your response, and I will note your bravery in my report to your government." She hesitated briefly, studying a readout, "What is your ship's status? My engineers need some time for emergency repairs, but I expect they will have the quantum slipstream system available shortly and we can return to Alliance-held space."

She looked up somewhat grimly, "We did very well thanks to your help, but we are carrying refugees and can expect a Herald response shortly, and I do not believe they will be so obliging. Our little opening salvo works very well, but requires optimum conditions."

"Bravery?" Tervan managed, surprised. Yes, they were going to die well.

"Your volunteering your location for a navigation update lured the Heralds to try and attack an Alliance squadron, and then gathered them closely enough the _Simurgh_ was able to launch a concentrated strike." The Romulan admiral briefly patted an armrest. "Unfortunately, this ship is unable to sustain that level of damage output, or the Heralds would be less of a problem. We should, perhaps, continue this conversation elsewhere. Is your ship warp-capable?"

Bait. He inwardly seethed, but went into the captain's business of arranging a nearby rendezvous and return to spacedock. "Yes, the Heralds were arranging for capture, it seems – my mission in the area must be necessarily cut short," he said curtly.

The Romulan winced, briefly – perhaps a trifle theatrically. "I apologize, but you will have the thanks of New Romulus Command and the Bolian government." Tervan gave a dubious look.

Several days later, he finished giving his report to the strategic analyst who'd cut his orders originally. Given several hours to patch their worst hurts, the _Simurgh_ had been able to let them ride in their slipstream (the Admiral, apparently, knew many of the right people as much advanced tech had been stuffed on her ship) thanks to the vast size disparity between a _Nova_ and well, anything built by the Romulans.

"I apologize I was unable to finish my survey for mine debris, though it is clear the Heralds still had gateways on standby in the area," Tervan said, standing at attention, "Though I do need to protest having my mission co-opted, even by an allied government."

The analyst nodded, "Yes, and the _Aquila_ requires at least a week to be considered mission-capable again, the shipyard tells me. You should probably forgive the Admiral, she's one of the Republic's officers without portfolio, and has access to the Alliance's latest technology, it's easy to forget how the rest live."

Tervan sniffed at this, "Regardless, she was playing very fast and loose with our group's lives, and the refugees, is my understanding. Saving any of them was a near impossibility, without disrupting other operations. The manual exists for a reason."

The analyst smiled, "Yes – the combined experience of thousands of captains, but there are situations that are not covered very well. Are you familiar with Article 14 of the Charter?" The human waved a hand when the captain opposite him shook his head hesitantly. "I may have to tell you more on that later."

Franklin Drake turned on a screen showing a section of space near the old Argama sector. "I'm sure you're not familiar with our work in the Kyana system, but have you ever read Professor Manheim's research?"

The Rigelian nodded in response. "Naturally, the man was a visionary, and time-space interactions are at the heart of deep-subspace observation."

"Excellent," Drake said with a slight smile, "While your ship isn't prepared for this mission, I'd like to put your name forward for a special assignment. There is a Federation lab that does limited chroniton research. We did not want to move them to cause any interruptions, as their work may be vital against the Iconians, but the base missed its last check-in. Being in old Romulan space, I'm afraid you already met your escort, but your report on her behavior will be viewed very carefully."

Tervan grinned, ferally at that.

A/N : May follow-up on this later for the two having to work together far more closely, or if Drake's just providing 'motivation', heh.


	2. Chapter 2 - Odd Mirrors

Odd Couple, pt 2

By Tremor3258

Decided to do a second part of this – the original was a prompt on the Unofficial Literary Challenge 13 on the Star Trek Online forums. Still set before "Broken Circle". Technically an entry for ULC 20 – which had a freeform entry. :)

"And here are the casualty reports from Rator III – I am not sure if Tal Shiar forces are actively sabotaging them or holes were simply left for the Iconians before the Empire's hold on its remaining regions collapsed," Admiral An'riel seh'Virinat said, standing at attention. It was the last on a long list of attacks and abductions over what had been the vaunted and feared Empire's heart – now a wild and chaotic hinterland where the Republic could only offer token support to millions of its people.

And 'wild and chaotic' had been the form of support, a wild ride with Delta Flight behind lines to deliver the latest replicator patterns and tactical information on how to fight Iconians; to help improve ground defenses and disrupt gateways faster. It'd ended with a dramatic drop of three tanks of Rator's antimatter reserves right into a Herald battleship before they'd fled, exhausted, avenging thousands of ghosts and leaving hundreds of thousands more. The Heralds were hitting everywhere, but their terror attacks were being concentrated; for reasons no one could understand, against An'riel's people and the Remans.

So they'd come to the Vault for a brief refit, and she was delivering the list of reports from Rihannsu colony worlds in person, to help limit effects on morale to the general crew. She was in one of the most secure stations imaginable – the tremendous Vault, one of the Empire's greatest treasures, fortified even further by the most deviously paranoid mind she knew. She could feel, any moment, the Heralds would be through and she would be fighting again, forever. She'd looked around, no blast marks here… but she couldn't believe the Iconians would dare the very dangerous mind who worked here.

Said mind had a look of concern on his craggy face, though, studying the auburn vulcanoid's face closely. "When did you last sleep?" Obisek asked.

An'riel shrugged, and shook her head. "I think around the Cero System? What is today?" Obisek gestured and she fell into a chair with none of her usual practiced grace. "Raider squadrons were deploying inverted tetryon probes to help track our warp travel and slow us down. We managed to capture a probe intact – there's an amendment from the _Bern's_ engineering crew on a new set of techniques for sublight use of warp bubble as a tactical maneuver. It still has some issues in terms of maintenance-"

Obisek interrupted, "Yes, and I've attached a commendation to your crew and theirs for getting the _Bern_ back here after what their first try did to their warp coils." Delta Flight's mothership would be out of action for a few weeks as the Vault ran up some new warp coils – the _Geneva_ class had gotten them clear of the raider's ramming attempts at revenge after the battleship's destruction, but the first try of the unstable bubble through the coils had not been kind to its warp drive.

"Please forward that to Lt. Commander Paris," An'riel said, "She is unhappy with what the risk she took did to her command." That was putting it politely, Tom had been pleased with how running the edge of risk had worked, and Miral was rather chagrined about taking after her father to that degree.

"Yes, now, your attempt at distracting me with an important side-note is noted," Obisek said, "Go get you and your people some sleep, Admiral." He called up a hologram of the _Simurgh_ , gleaming white against the more typical dark hull constructions of the Vault. "We'll take care of your ship and get you back in the fight, but Alliance command won't be pleased if you run six hundred crew into a moon because you're too tired to remember to order a course correction."

More softly, "I can't say how I would have handled it any better than you, An'riel," Obisek said, "You're still alive, so you're doing better than a lot, and I need you to get up to speed on the strategic situation. The Federation is pulling out of two more sectors and there's still fighting on Qo'nos." An'riel sat up a little straighter at that.

"What about what the lab techs are up to?" she said carelessly.

"Not ready for testing, and the Alliance isn't prepared to give up conventional war yet," Obisek said. "We're trying to gather up strength – but something's come up. That's for _after_ you get some sleep." The Reman pulled a hypospray out of the deck and left it there, as a brief statement.

An'riel calculated her odds against Obisek even if she was fully rested… and stood. "I think my quarters are calling me, then," she decided, and walked to the desk and saluted. "I apologize for having to take up so much of your time," she said, and left.

Obisek could spare only a single second thought, as she was right – he had two dozen crises to deal with, and that was within the Vault alone, let alone the rest of the sector – but the second was to consider that when An'riel left, she took the hypospray with her.

*  
Lieutenant Commander Tervan of the _U.S.S. Aquila_ had had a busy week. The Rigellian was preparing for a special mission recently assigned by what he was pretty sure was a Federation intelligence agency. His ship, as a result, had been moved to some typically vast Romulan construction – from what he'd gathered, briefly surfacing from studies, was that it was a combination shipyard and refugee camp, wrested from Sela's reign in the dying days of the Empire.

Apparently, the Republic valued it very highly though – there was a series of transwarp gates mapped out that led practically to it. Even the _Aquila_ , warp core and coils developed during the previous era of power generation, had been able to make the trip relatively quickly. And, given the latest Intelligence briefings for the mission, they'd managed to avoid any Herald patrols.

The research he'd been looking at was absolutely fascinating – and given access to the larger computers on board the 'Vault' he'd made some tremendous progress with projections for the situation. There was one unfortunate downside that he'd been leaving his ship behind temporarily for the mission; there was no transwarp conduit where he'd be headed, and other transportation had been arranged.

Other transportation had used his ship as bait for a trap recently – casualties had been minor, he kept being told, but it'd stopped his navigation mission from behind done, and now he was being forced to wait for a jumped up Romulan flag officer.

The Reman attache trying to organize the meeting was certainly on the craggy side for a humanoid. "I'm sorry Captain, but we can't move up the meeting – Admiral seh'Virinat is undergoing a medical rest period upon the base commander's orders," she said, shuddering slightly when mentioning the commander.

The Path was strewn with obstacles. "This is a high priority mission – she just has to get the ship from point A and point B and keep the cloak from going out at high-warp, that's the engineers' job, anyway, can't you wake her?"

The adjunct looked at him aghast. "Sir, the base commander ordered it." She was clearly expecting some recognition. " _Obisek_ ordered it," she said, expectantly. She looked… unusually mournful after that and sighed. "Sir – rest assured, barring an all-out attack on this station, the Admiral will be asleep for at least four more hours, and will attend the meeting at the scheduled time."

"Very well – what is the current status on subspace within the former Borg zone?" he said. The adjunct nodded.

"I'll go pull those for you," she said, with some relief he'd stopped asking for the apparently impossible in these parochial spaces.

He watched her go briefly before settling down in a chair to study. Franklin Drake had recommended it as a useful misdirection to their actual destination, and the Undine attacks 'frothing' space was a natural explanation. It also gave him a chance with those files and some provided access codes and computer worms to pull warp trail traces for recent Republic fleet movements – confirming they were telling the Alliance the truth about all their movements.

An'riel woke groggy – six hours of sleep grabbed. She flailed briefly, expecting an alert, but things here were silent – no one abducted in the night or strikes in the shadows. Even the frequent Tal Shiar nightmares had been submerged below the chemicals. She stumbled to the refresher and rinsed out her mouth – she'd never encountered a sleep-aid that handled that, and the period when her body was out of control helped replace some of the nightmares.

"Computer – do I have any current messages?" An'riel asked once she was feeling a little more upright.

"Three messages from Commander Tervan – one auto-alert copied from _Simurgh_ – access attempt from the residential sectors against confidential computer sectors. Security has been alerted," the computer said. "No messages from Alliance command flagged priority. One message auto-bumped to priority from Captain Kagran – reading 'timeline maintained.'".

"Send message acknowledgement to Kagran," An'riel said, rolling her eyes. The Vault had a large population at the best of times across old Imperial space, and there'd been no hope of background checks. Someone was spying for _everyone_ and every time she'd brought a ship here there'd been some sort of infiltration attempt. It was expected, and fortunately – was usually by thrill-seekers more than serious operatives. Real spies would grab operational data on logistics and fleet movements rather than sift through the masses in a starship's computer core.

"Display messages from Tervan on screen," she directed, "Text-only." She'd met him briefly, a few weeks back – commanding one of the ubiquitous short-range Starfleet science ships. What it'd been doing several sectors past what passed for the front-lines she wasn't sure – but he'd insisted he wasn't lost even as he'd borrowed their slipstream corridor back to K-7.

The text messages were basically status updates, polite variations on a theme to try and get the mission started sooner. Apparently he had some skills or useful knowledge – technically, the _Simurgh_ was transportation and fire support for the mission – she hadn't gotten a complete briefing yet. His rank seemed low for the task though, as the Allaince was dispensing captaincies like raindrops. Elements knew she'd benefited.

Rigelians. What to know – wannabe Vulcans, crossed a little with Ferengi, and she didn't know most of the captains' names in the Republic forces, let alone in Starfleet, even though she'd been under varying levels of command by Federation forces the last few years.

"Computer – directions to the cafeteria, and audio connection to Commander Jalel, please," she directed. The Vault was big enough to have a proper hydroponics section for food, and after Satra had something about her losing weight, everyone had been pestering her to eat more regular meals, for some reason.

"The cafeteria is three decks below and to the left from the turbolift. Connecting Commander Jalel, no visual," the computer said pleasantly – Obisek had apparently finally gotten the system defaults updated from the harsher original voice.

"Admiral, Jalel here – have you eaten?" her Trill liaison officer asked pleasantly. An'riel huffed.

"Next on my schedule," she said.

"I can join you, if you need the company," he continued cheerfully.

She opened her mouth to retort, then thought better of it, "Of course, I am still on the Vault, if you would like to join me – I have about an hour before my next meeting."

"Of course, Admiral – I can join you there in five," her security chief promised.

"Not an issue," she lied, and closed the connection, rushing to get a clean uniform on.

*  
Feeling appropriately presentable and with a plate courtesy of the Vault's clambeds, she was feeling a little less rushed ten minutes later, inhaling the steam greedily. It'd been too long since they'd touched anyplace where the food wasn't on the same replicator patterns.

To her continued irritation, Jalel was watching to make sure he ate – not touching his until she'd gotten the first mollusk down, but he'd listened to the story.

"I'm sorry Admiral," Jalel said regretfully. "All I know is the same record you have, and I don't know anyone in surveying to ask. There's so many people coming up today, but I can tell you professionally…" he trailed off and leaned forward, glancing around briefly. She gave him the theatrics. "Lieutenant Commander's the traditional first rank where time in grade starts to become fairly lengthy; he's served full time to reach there without boosts. Not being captain at the rank, not strange, but so long to reach the rank, pretty unusual in Starfleet. We're go-getters," he finished with some pride.

An'riel had looked up the phrasing earlier – the translation from Federation Standard was certainly colloquial. "Please keep this from the crew then," she said, "Commander Tervan may be the best for the job simply from lack of remaining living options."

"Well, he may not be that bad," Jalel allowed, "Just lacking in initiative – Rigelians may not look it, but their brains and physiology are closer to yours than mine, or humans. They've got a trading focus and a tradition of self-reflection, but any one in Starfleet isn't an idiot."

Tervan stood before a simple projection of space around Gamma Orionis, finishing up what he felt was necessary background – though it was very bare bones considering only an hour. "This area was obviously remote for a research facility, but the location was thought to offer additional opportunities," he lectured – feeling back in the Academy and on his groove, "After the Borg's attempts at temporal interference, the Federation established an outpost to examine for any 'weaknesses' or temporal anomalies in the continuum."

"I have some experience with Borg temporal technology," his audience allowed. A solitary Romulan admiral sitting on the other end of the briefing room table, arms folded politely. "My engineers at the time found it a marvel of efficiency, though the Republic was loathe to spend too many resources tampering with something both Borg and time-related. It left extremely minor traces."

Tervan nodded, "I saw some of those from the Aegis Project files; those aren't 'time travel' devices per se- they're designed to minimize disruption by time travelers – they force objects out of chronological step back to their original orientation – the actual math still eludes Starfleet, but they're effectively a 'go home' for time travelers."

Tervan swapped his slides, bringing up the traditional 'vortex' of a time-corridor. "Borg 'normal' time-travel technology is based on their usual redundancies. Even their power technology requires a fixed installation to minimize temporal disruption, but it leaves weak point any ship can exploit to enter the timestream."

"Given portions of Gamma Orionis were close to Tal Shiar space, why was the Republic not informed earlier?" Admiral seh'Virinat said coldly.

Tervan stopped, poleaxed – she may be jumped up, but a jumped up Admiral of the Republic was still a representative of an allied superpower. "It may not have been given priority – the theory they're testing is still completely theoretical. My information indicated they were still struggling to create a base-line for observing temporal interference, especially focused on astrometric observations of different points as affected by chroniton flow."

An'riel nodded at that, almost instantly going back to relaxed. Rigelians weren't given to sweating when nervous, but Tervan could understand the impulse. "Then I understand it was not a distress call, simply a loss of contact?"

"Yes, but that's worrying enough given temporal research," Tervan said. "Are you familiar with the Manheim effect?" An'riel shook her head. "It's a research path involving limited dimensional incursions to create temporal-diffracted quantum duplicates. The different dimensions have shown some effect – thanks to the different time stream, of observing and potentially shielding against effects to the timestream."

An'riel's eyes narrowed briefly at that. "Commander, I can see why this mission is a priority, then. However, we do have a serious problem, unless Starfleet was able to update you with any wormholes or subspace slipstream phenomenon into Gamma Orionis? Are there any special phenomena we are expected to use or need to avoid for the mission?"

Tervan looked confused, "No, Admiral – just a briefing as to the lab structure and personnel, along with previous updates from the lab, including the attached research articles I've shown. The ship's own status shouldn't disturb any on-going experiments."

"Then we have a small problem, since Task Force Omega was forced to withdraw from the transwarp conduit to the homeworlds' three days ago," the Romulan said. "The coordinates indicated are at best, three weeks away at sustainable warp. That will help the mission's misinformation aspects, our own time window makes this unacceptable."

The Admiral's ship was, he had been told by his superiors, only available for four days given an important mission – and they would prefer three if at all possible. "I'm afraid I can't change the laws of physics, Admiral," Tervan said, glumly. Or, apparently, the laws of bureaucracy to make sure all he needed for a successful mission and a negative report were in the right place.

The Admiral smiled at that. "Ah, Captain, that is why it is a small problem – as I know of a location where we _can_."

*  
Later, safely ensconced in the _Simurgh_ 's familiar-if-alien bridge, An'riel was still smiling as their moorings cleared. They had a mission, it had a clear objective, and it was her crew's talents that could make a difference, versus the large fleet actions of the Iconian War that continued to go poorly.

And there was the other reason.

"An'riel," Tovan was asking on a private channel, "Is the Commander on board? He's not on the bridge and we're about to leave the Vault."

An'riel continued smiling, "I asked the Lieutenant Comamnder if he wished to view the situation from Astrometrics after he came on board, and he agreed."

"He does know he's the mission commander?" Tovan asked.

"Yes, he made that clear a few times during the briefing," An'riel said, still smiling. "He did not bring up any counterpoints, though, and we can call him should the surprise of him being useful take place."

"The Republic still needs the Federation, Admiral – even heroes can get dry assignments," her first officer said much more seriously. "And maybe they should, once in a while."

Her grin faded, "I am sorry, Tovan," she said, more seriously. "I understand our place in the order of battle – but I have seen nothing to reconsider our previous judgement of the Commander – he is a cog in the machine, wound up and set off. I cannot believe he will be able to react at the frontier."

"I'm not sure how he's going to react when he sees your route," Tovan said, grinning.

The ship cleared moorings smoothly, leaving the vast Vault for the stars. Tervan sat, taking it all in, in Astrometrics, happy to be ignored by the staff manning the station. There was some excellent sensors here, far better than the _Aquila_ , and was hoping to justify some black star observations with his missions while in transit. Politely requesting security concerns, the Admiral had not yet told how she planned to shave two weeks off a trip.

And Astrometrics was showing no routing or secret wormhole, just a map of local conditions was being relayed to the bridge. So much for secret Romulan plans.

"Tervan to Admiral seh'Virinat," he said, tapping the console. It connected him immediately – the Romulan was staring at him neutrally. "Admiral – you seemed convinced you had some way of solving the issue – but I don't see any sort of plotting down here that would explain it."

"Our route is more diplomatic than scientific, Commander," the Admiral said. "Fluidic space has a relationship with normal space while being far more compact, and the Undine currently have a peace treaty with the Alliance."

"Admiral, your easier option is to cross continuum?" Tervan said doubtfully.

"Technically, we do that every time we enter warp, and this ship is more than capable of generating the required type of singularity, even given local space being less favorable," the Admiral said calmly.

To just brazenly enter another universe, with alien physics. He swallowed, dry – the Way was certainly loss there. "I agree the mechanics are within our range," he said, "But who can say what exists on the other side, exactly?"

"Our likelihood of entering a structure is extremely low, Commander, and given our current limitations on the transwarp network, I do not see other options," the Admiral said. She glanced off screen, then turned back, "Though I would like to invite you to the bridge for whatever contact we make."

"All right," he said, grimacing. This felt insane; going through the dragon's den on the way to Borg space.

The ship transitioned with a bit of a splash, in An'riels opinion, transitioning to a reality with a very similar set of physical laws, but very different constraints. She wondered what would happen as easy reality transfer became more common, if they survived the Iconians.

Fluidic space was as per normal - a heavy strain on their drives and deflectors to keep it out, while being half-blinded. Bizarre organic structures were barely visible on sensors. The shockwave of their passage propagated out. There was no stealth in fluidic space. Tervan was gripping, but subtly, she noticed, the side of the console at her bridge station. The ship rocked, dampeners trying to keep up.

Some were mobile. A bioship detached from one of the structures shortly after their arrival, gliding through the medium in a way that made An'riel frankly envious.

"Communication from the locals," Jalel reported, "No visual."

"Relay to main speaker," An'riel directed.

"You are known to this space, and tolerated. We hunt the false betrayers, the weak in shadow," said the voice, and An'riel had to go with it hissed. "But they flit and bring the silent ones – there are many to reach the leaders. Have you news?"

"The war continues in our space," An'riel assured, "We believe we found a weakness but we need your aid to exploit it, thanks to your strength, but much travel with subtlety. Can we reach the area where the Borg attacked you from here?"

Silence stretched for a time. "Yes," the voice said, and An'riel leaned back. Tervan shot her a relieved glance. "It is not far, we will need to fight the silent ones."

"Lead on, and we will lend our strength against your enemies," An'riel said, and cut the communication. Three more bioships joined up with them in a diamond escort formation. "Follow their lead, helm," she directed.

She looked up to Tervan, "If you would like a console or some seat, please let me know." Her eyes danced with fires. "I was wondering where they went."

"Ah, the silent ones - you think Elachi raiders have been moved to this front?" Tervan said. She was briefly surprised, he generally hadn't seemed spectacularly aware of the Republic's fight there.

"With the Heralds tipping their hands, they are not as useful as raiders in our space – we are losing people to the Iconians directly now," she said grimly. "But why waste a perfectly good fleet full of marauders?"

"Jalel, please pull all our tactical information and previous encounters by the Republic with the Elachi and send to the Undine; they were able to infiltrate Starfleet, they should be able to understand the tactical protocols," An'riel said. The Trill nodded.

"Useful information," Tervan said, "I hope they can disseminate enough to remove the threat."

An'riel stared for a while, and her eyes flickered. "Oh yes," An'riel said quietly, but her eyes were full of fire, "I do hope so – the Republic owes a great blood debt to the destruction of these kidnappers. I do not claim the term translates, but… yes, our honor demands much on the Elachi." She smiled without humor and continued, "And it does not hurt for allies of convenience to understand we are very good at killing them."

They followed the Undine bioships, three more ships joining them on the way. An'riel didn't leave the bridge – the ship was crippled, barely able to see, moving at a snail's pace compared to their real top speed. A ship that could usually dash across light years was moving in speeds of tens of thousands of kilometers. It was a vise made of treacle.

The Undine were not communicative after the first exchange. Their internal guidance systems were logging their path, and An'riel was reasonably certain if the Undine stayed friendly, they could make it back. Given all the data on Elachi tactics and strategies, the Elachi would have no chance of hiding in the Undine's native space. And no tears would be shed in the Republic if the whole slave race was burned out, perverters of bodies, slavers, and assassins, every root and fungal pod.

Tervan was quiet, studying the spatial readings with some distaste. "Gravimetric shear all over the place – varying particle densities, incredibly high energy and temperature levels. Subspace has a great deal in common with our universe, in spite of its inhospitability."

"True, but life has found a way here. A liaison post here would be fascinating, I think," An'riel said absently, watching the sensor readings, feeling that old thrill of a puzzle being hunted down. Tervan seemed briefly surprised at that – which surprised _her_ , since it was her, unadulterated for once.

Then she frowned, back on duty – she could feel it, a subtle change in the ship's momentum that the dampeners hadn't caught. "Report," she said.

"Multiple micro-point shockwaves disturbing local conditions," Hiven said. "Starting to detect an energy gradient ahead, and the spectrometer is showing some additional characteristics in the soup out there… free oxygen and biologicals consistent with Elachi readings," he said, with some relish.

"Report contact to Undine. Combat alert, children," An'riel ordered, shifting back into her seat as the klaxon started. From here, it always felt so easy as the status reports flashed to clear on the repeater, the usual well-drilled dance. Below decks, of course, crew were rushing to duty posts, to damage control, to back-up posts. One of the best gifts of her association with Starfleet was learning how to properly choreograph a mad rush to stations to a military dance.

Tervan was clearly expecting it, used to Federation professionalism and drive, as he didn't even glance at the status board, instead studying the sensor repeater. "Excellent resolution on the diffraction rate – looks like their warp drives are running a bit better power/mass ratios than they were at the Battle of Romulus," he said, and loudly.

 _Unsurprising_ , she thought, _With the Iconians tipping their hand_. She didn't say it aloud, with Tovan's comments still ringing. Starfleet loved to talk, from everything she saw, though the timing could be better on the eve of battle.

"They are blunting their swords," An'riel said aloud, "The Undine are far more dangerous, here on their home ground, and with the Iconian portal network, the Elachi do not have to scuttle so far, they can burn their ships out for their slavemasters." _That should do it_. Her crew and family nodded at that.

Satra glanced at Tervan, then reported fairly smugly, "Bioelectricity ratings and bioplasma generation spiking on Undine vessels. They're moving to a wall attack pattern."

Jalel added, "Updating tactical and strategic display with enemy course histories, the Undine are in contact with their engaged units, and relayed the information, along with more navigation information, I think they finished deciphering our reference system."

Light points, scattered at distances on a logarithmic scale, with fainter shadows indicating past movement. They were the usual Republic phoenix in the center of the screen, neutral amber lights indicating Undine, and a dark, near-black green, one of the colors of death, for the Elachi.

The lines were twisting and longer than she had expected – the Undine were scattered – light probes and skirmishing for most of the lines. The count of ships was _far_ low from the intelligence reports she'd seen, which meant either the Undine were doing even worse than the Alliance, or they were keeping most of their fleet movements sensibly hidden from an ally of convenience.

"Strange, everything I figured would have the Undine showing brauva in their space," Tervan commented.

Though sensible was relative between species, An'riel had to remind herself. "True – they have been very blatant recently, but it is unclear how honorable infiltration is to them, or fits their matrix. They have clearly been undergoing some major strategic shifts," she finished with something she could agree with.

"Hmm – strategy," Tervan said, "Hard to say in this space – this looks almost like patrol skirmishing than an invasion, but we don't know where the Undine's 'capital' is or even if they have one. There's no instance of a fully telepathic interstellar polity outside legends in our galaxy. It would be fascinating to see in action."

An'riel glanced at him – Rigellians were like Rhiannsu, with telepathy being rare at best. But her people had the stories from their hellish desert origin, and what psychic powers had been used for. She made a non-committal noise.

HIven – still working with there was of their passive sensor capacity in the soup, reported, "Getting a better read as distance closes – confirming Elachi disruptor fire present – starting to detect some fluctuations in the baseline, they're taking a real pounding."

"Signal the Undine that we are preparing to cloak and catch them off the flank from," An'riel paused briefly and looked at the map, judging, "seventy-five mark eighteen, and are armed with gravimetric weapons." It'd be a bit of a longer run, but put them closer to where the Undine had indicated Gamma Orionis corresponded in their reality… and given the high density of fluidic space, a little more distance probably wouldn't be unappreciated when they started hurling small singularities.

"Undine signal affirmation and are braced for gravimetric shear," Jalel said, "Also – they are prepared to purge the weak."

"I had no doubts," An'riel said with some amusement creeping in.

"Particulate density increasing," Satra said, "From the traces I'd say this isn't the first batch of Elachi destroyed there. Unusual concentrations of gases and biologicals consistent with Elachi optimal atmospheric conditions."

"Surprised the spores are doing so well here," Tervan asided, with continual calm. "Would we be able to get a sample? Fluidic space and the local immune systems usually break down anything from our reality. Biology's not really my area, but I know some people we could get good co-author credit on."

"We are reliant on our shields against the pressure – any nearby spores will almost certainly be irradiated given the Cherenkov radiation," An'riel said. She wouldn't say more here, but the Rigelian should have known that. From a quick glance away from the status monitors, Tervan had realized that as well.

"Apologies, overly excited," Tervan said, abashed, "So much of planetary survey is confirming previous quick analysis, and a chance to look at some new development." _That_ made some sense.

"Aspiration is one of the things that unite all star-faring people," An'riel said. Ah, to make a name for herself… old dream, that before making something grand for future generations on Virinat. "We will be sharing all our mission logs, of course, but I doubt we will be able to achieve any samples." She glanced at the chart, and tapped out a path. "Initiate cloak, navigation, follow maneuver from my console," she ordered, leaning back.

The ship had, apparently, more seats on the bridge than were visible, snapping into place out of the floor as needed, and Tervan had settled into one in the captain's station area to monitor the situation. Tervan had heard Dyson command had been the same way – consoles and equipment moving into position as requested and out of the way otherwise, but had never gotten the opportunity for a research mission there before his own captaincy. The Tholian and the Solanae apparently shared some design aesthetics.

Tervan had seen the ship fight, from the outside, a sudden surprise strike, imperiously designating _his ship_ as bait. And An'riel seemed as imperious here, simply calling out orders and keeping whatever analysis she was doing close to her chest, and radiating an inhumanoid calm.

He hoped he'd be able to follow – there was no central viewer, the center holoprojector set to a multi-function display, each officer apparently on their own and separated.

"Undine engaging closely," An'riel's heavy-set sensor officer reported. "One Elachi ship breaking up… correction, designated as Monbosh Battleship, and support structures." He looked up briefly, over towards the captain's station. "Admiral, based on that and relative signal strengths of other ships, two S'gloth's and two Qulash supporting."

"Update tactical plot," the Admiral said, still calm, even though they were probably outgunned. More quietly, she asked "Commander Tervan, you have some experience with deep-space subspace scans, anything you can add about the refit status of the frigates? I suspect at least one Entangler – the KDF reported their subspace jumpers functioned in fluidic space, and the Elachis' are similar."

He looked more closely at the scans, pulling up sensor records – fluidic space was making a hash out of their engine readings. He barely heard as seh'Virinat snapped out orders, the ship irritably banking as he was trying to type.

"Admiral, Undine are opening a focus-array aligned on the battleship," the other sensor officer reported. That had him stop at the moment, since it was about to top being a problem.

"Abort previous path, ready to induce singularity, bring us behind the bioships and into combat range. Torpedo tubes, prepare all drivers for full spread, center on battleship," the Admiral ordered. He glanced at the tactical display – Undine ships in a tight ring ahead, others exchanging fire with Elachi ships, with the _Simurgh_ banking frantically to get into position following the Undine shifting their attack.

The ring of ships fired – a beam so powerful it sent a pulse through the fluidic medium, setting their ship to rocking. The battleship's shields flared, visible even at that range, and the suddenly collapsed. The Nicor ships slowed.

"Power levels dropping," reported the female science officer, "They're worn out, but recovering."

"Emergency maneuvers to battle range, we cannot waste the opportunity – drop cloak, initiate singularity, ready torpedoes, and relay sensor scans to tactical," the Admiral listed off.

The ship's tenor shifted as it dropped out of cloak. Tactical updated as the _Simurgh_ told space to bend, significantly. The starship's power created a temporary micro-singularity, and the Elachi started to gather… though to some irritation Tervan noted one of the frigates had subspace jumped.

"Ignore it at the moment, go for the capital ship," the Admiral ordered. Tactical suddenly cascaded with dots as the high-pitched chirp of mass-driver discharges rang through the hull, dozens of torpedoes launching out, scattering into additional rifts tearing at space time, and feeding off the mass of fluidic space. The sudden stream of exotic particles was too much, and one of the escorts exploded under the strain… taking the frigate with it, and judging from the sudden increase in spore concentrations visible to _Simurgh_ 's spectrometers, crippling the battleship.

Tervan had to admit it looked impressive, but considering the maintenance upcharge, he'd never considered it worth the cost in man-hours to his engineering crews to even consider submitting in refit requests. You could easily keep several escorts manned for the increased manning requirements of the overloaded destroyers, even before factoring in specialty equipment.

"Admiral, message from the Undine skirmishers," Jalel, the liaison reported. Tervan still couldn't believe a Romulan had accepted an outsider as a _security chief_. "General request." The Romulan simply nodded in reply – apparently they'd set up some camera relay hookups.

Over the speakers, "Take back to your people – we will fight against the shadows, and _never be weak_ ," came the hissing voice. The Undine ships that had been previously engaged vectored in…. and then suddenly, exploded, drive-cores overloaded… the overlapping radiation and pressure waves finishing off the Elachi, and themselves.

"Elements," the Admiral breathed out. The other Undine ships spread out… and were clearly methodically phasering the space around them. "It is… decontamination?" she mused.

Jalel shook himself, "Message from our escort."

"Thank you for helping irradiate space… they spread their seeds through our space, damaging our purity, but we will show our strength to open the way so you may strike in your home as well. We will take the knowledge of them and continue rooting them out. Foul intruders. We will open the way, so you may continue to destroy them," came a slightly different hissing voice.

The Admiral shared a look with Tervan, as one of the Undine moved to some specific spot along its grim business… and paused, opening a gateway singularity.

"Admiral, I suppose the Elachi have been upgraded, then," he said finally, "Even if it's non-lethal but sustained…"

"The Undine are unable to accept it – hence the skirmishing, and thereby keeping them contained. The Iconian prey on their fears, make them not themselves," An'riel finished, with a brief shudder. Tervan could well imagine a Romulan's disgust at something alien within themselves.

Whatever xenophobia was apparently brief. "Re-engage cloak. Helm, take us through," the Admiral said, returning to calmness

Given Undine's usual amazing ability to moderate their metabolisms, An'riel could well imagine how having a part of themselves out of that control would affect them, after her experience with Tal Shiar holoconditioning. Fortunately, counseling and time had distanced the horrors, even if it'd been gnawing its way back into her dreams of late.

The Undine had dropped them off a few light years from the targeted location. Once, this had been the adventurous frontier for Federation colonists, but the Borg's resurgence had turned it into a graveyard. Subspace was damn close to silent, and it seemed even the Heralds weren't in the area. They'd remained cloaked though on the short warp hop.

Given the limitations on cloaks at warp speed, it'd still taken an hour to travel – now that they were finally clear of fluidic space and in more familiar dangers, she'd released her main bridge crew to grab a meal and a cat-nap, rather than try and speed up into whatever disaster had befallen the station.

Tervan had stayed on the bridge, grabbing one of the sensor stations. She'd sent a meal up, at least. She wondered what he hoped to find, while traveling at warp, cloaked, towards a station that supposedly was using passive sensors… but she had the exotic particle lab mirroring his console in case something came up and it was 'neglected' to be mentioned again.

Feeling a bit more refreshed, she took her seat again as _Simurgh_ approached her warp-out point, transition energy crackling back into itself. If Kererek ever lost his mind and gave her, a potential traitor, a permanent command consummate with her rank (instead of as a sinecure), she was going to have to try and get it similarly refitted.

She'd heard all the complaints about specialized equipment, and dismissed them. Engineering staff, as far as she'd found, hated being bored, and the extra power efficiency was one more edge that helped tilt the scales in the Republic's favor. One ship with a motivated and well-trained crew was often worth three, or five ships where the captains hadn't pushed as hard.

As they came out of warp, she decided she wouldn't mind five ships or so.

Tervan had been studying – Gamma Orionis, after all, was only inhabited by warships, whatever Starfleet called them, while evacuating colonies and dealing with the Borg, and no one had done a proper stellar survey – he could do that even on passive. There'd been a few odd signals up ahead, but he'd simply logged them – the world chosen for a research lab was a large blue star, very active – the lab itself buried deep underground, but a large stellar mass was often useful for temporal research. It was a junk system, full of asteroids, and planetary rings. Gorgeous, but there were easier systems to make a living in.

When they emerged, however, their passive sensors could pick up a battle going on even over the star's 'noise', and the flare of antiprotons impacting indicated at least one of the contenders even at long-range. The other though….

He could feel the admiral looking at him, but he didn't have an answer. The warp signatures were clearly Federation – up to and including an _Odyssey,_ though what it was doing so far from the homeworlds he had no idea. They were still trying to sort IFFs, though there didn't seem to be much communication going on.

The Admiral also hadn't contacted them yet, and considering they were certainly in his balliwick at the actual mission site yet, he decided to ask why.

"Commander, at this distance and given conditions of an active battle," she said, "We cannot actually confirm a tightbeam reception." She pulled up an extra holo screen, and 'rolled' the battle back slightly, pointing at a spot where a ship was briefly mirrored shortly before its death. "Apparently due to gateways and the local radiation at this range, we are seeing sensor ghosts and artifacts. We are approaching at full impulse to join the battle."

"Herald ships confirmed, Admiral," said one of the sensor officers. "Flares in the energy reading looks like solar gateways, so it's a pretty good sized force."

"Admiral – finally got an intercept bounce off the third gas giant's atmosphere," Jalel reported. "IFF read _I.S.S. Titania_."

That brought the bridge into silence for several moments. Tervan cleared his throat, "Admiral, if the Mirror Universe is expending effort here, the lab's facilities may be sufficient for an anti-tachyon reversion pulse."

"If the lab is still present, of course, but that seems likely. It is currently on the day side?" she asked. Somehow – Tervan was still trying to figure out all the signals, her first officer knew to respond.

"Yes, Admiral," the tall Romulan – Khev, he recalled, replied. "If they had any communication satellites, they're long gone."

"Speaking of long," the female science officer said, "The battle must have been raging here for a while – the planetary ring density does not match records. Significantly so"

"What?" Tervan and the Admiral said at the same time. She gestured briefly, and he continued. "How significantly?"

"At least two to three times previous indicated mass estimated from visual readings," she replied defensively.

"Admiral, with your permission and given the forces appear to be engaged, I'd like to request an active sweep," Tervan said.

"Granted, all stop – full spectrum scans of system and give a concentrated graviton sweep of the fifth, fourth, and third planet," the Admiral said. "Then bring us bearing thirty plus random angle mark… twenty for at least five million kilometers back under cloak."

Her crew set to the task. Tervan, thinking of his report and waste. "Admiral, we're only interested in the fourth world."

"A little misdirection can be useful, Lieutenant Commander," the Admiral said quietly. "If they pick up our signals, let them think they have poor intelligence."

The ship's lights dimmed slightly – cloak dropping and engine noise dimming as the ship devoted power to its sensor array. Data poured in, megaquads into the computer core for analysis. He watched the status boards, then they were done – the ship recloaking and on its way.

"Begin analysis," the Admiral said. "Bring us on evasive so we have line of sight on the lab's location." Tactical started to sharpen almost immediately – but it was still chaotic, squadrons flickering around on screen, dropping in and out – both sides struggling to guard against a surprise attack. Despite the active sweep – ships were vanishing and duplicating on screen.

"I apologize, Comander," the Admiral said quietly with a frown. "On behalf of the Republic. Rest assured, this is a shocking equipment state after even a light refit, and we will get to the bottom of this." She glared at her console. "Given the number of sensor ghosts, I thank the Elements we were able to navigate safely at warp."

He couldn't blame her, no captain liked to see their ship underperform. Still, these sort of sensor artifacts should have been noticed when they left the Vault, unless somehow they had completely unseated the deflector. That wasn't just a wobble in the resonance cavity.

The Way provides, though – his line of thought triggered, something. "Do we have quantum resolution at this range?" he asked.

"Once the graviton analysis comes back," the Admiral replied promptly, "The tunneling from that will get a decent read on neutrino emissions and my crew can work back from there. But we cannot trust its validity."

Tervan said, "We might be able to, though I'd like to oversee the analysis. There's plenty of energy in the system, and there's an old temporal research technique of Dr. Paul Manheim's I suspect they've utilized. Some of the temporal ships washing out of the Azure Nebula have been weaponizing it already."

The Admiral was nodding when an alarm chirped. Khev reported, "Additional squadrons of ships gating in. They're starting a search pattern in this direction. The Empire ships are sticking to the main battle."

"Commander – if you can confirm this is in action and how to counteract it, we can continue our mission," the Admiral said. "I believe I can safely evade the Heralds without leaving the system for at least a while – how long will you need?"

"To confirm – say forty-five minutes for the quantum analysis. A few hours to map it after that," Tervan said, after some quick mental arithmetic.

"Do you think we should attempt communication with the outpost?" the Admiral asked.

"I don't think we'll be able to make sense of it, and even if we did, a tightbeam will probably end up scattered across local spacetime," Tervan said, making a face. Hopefully, they were still alive down there.

" _Simurgh_ can certainly evade that long. Ready a probe mimicking our warp shadow on previous heading. We will stand down from combat alert and remain cloaked. Please let me know when you believe we will be able to continue, and we can confer on a strategy," the Admiral said.

Tervan nodded and gave a brief salute, dismissing himself to the main science labs. He entered the turbolift as he heard the Admiral's orders being repeated as _Simurgh_ went to ground.

Evading a Herald force was slightly more complicated than she'd let on – balancing a probe appropriately to look enticingly like a cloaked vessel evading while still being trackable, but the distances of space meant within fifteen minutes they were well separated, the Heralds gating off back to whatever mayhem they'd been called away from as An'riel directed her warbird towards its bolthole, taking a wide course around the system's elliptic and the on-going battle.

An'riel had decided against trying a catnap – a few hours off duty would work nearly as well, and she'd taken an hour to write up the after-action report on their trip through fluidic space. She wanted to document everything while it was still fresh – the sociological impact of the Undine suicide attack would help fill in more puzzle pieces – their biological skills would make the Undine a big business in terraforming if their thought patterns could ever be deciphered enough to hold to a deal. No one, even Tuvok who'd mind-melded one, could say with consistency how the Undine _thought_.

It was downright irritating – all her previous training in her old life had been about synthesizing traits, patterns and analysis and it'd kept her alive through a dozen Element-cursed flavors of hell. Each encounter added something though, she hoped the sociologists would get something out of it.

Trying to put it out of her mind, she'd then curled up with the works of Dr. Paul Manheim. He was apparently a brilliant theoretician, doing his best work during the Interregnum when the Empire had kept its borders with the Federation sealed. His gravity interactions with space-time and dimensional transit had been very forward, but like many scientists his output decreased in later years, though he had managed to prove some of his theories. Some of his early work was born out by quantum slipstream, as well, but the math was downright esoteric.

She was still puzzling over it when she'd gone to the central cafeteria for some sandwiches. She was expecting Tervan to signal soon, so she'd rather have a quick meal than bother a yeoman to have to clear away something half-eaten. Also – it was Reman week, and the galley always did better with their cold recipes in her mind. Though replicators were better than most had eaten during the last few decades, taste sensitivity for an ex-dessert species was such a set of chefs with knowledge of a spice rack was appreciated.

She'd detected, but not reacted, when a presence slid across the table. "Double-checking the main deflector?" Tovan asked, with a platter of primarily stew.

She paused her calculations and looked up. "And step on Veril's prerogative? Far too late in the partnership for that," she said with a light laugh. The bridge crew was off-duty, but the chief engineer was running a level-two diagnostic to eliminate the more reasonable possibilities for their bizarre readings.

"Even the Hortas are starting to look a little worn," Tovan warned, "She's still nervous about all the control systems playing together, even if _Simurgh_ 's behaved pretty well after it got through its naming."

"Given current operations, I think we can stand down for a full shakedown refit next week. Plenty of time then to polish everything up" An'riel said, "One way or the other." _Simurgh_ had been born in the first phase of the Iconian War. They'd had a chance to do some basic checks and install some secondary equipment, and handle major repairs. Veril had a checklist of a few dozen minor items that would seriously improve performance now that the crew and settled in, but they hadn't had the yard time to really optimize yet.

"It would be nice if Kagran's plan means we don't have to use any of this," Tovan said quietly, and took a bite, savoring it. An'riel had long given up in despair on her friend's culinary choices.

"A temporal research group is exactly what Nog needs to make sure the impossible is done correctly," An'riel said, "And it is certainly more… certain in its effects than time travel. That always seems to have different effects."

"Well, here we are, thanks to the Krenim, we can calculate it all out," Tovan said cheerfully. Something must have flashed in her eyes. "What?"

"Calculations," An'riel said, "Asking university math of someone who just knows algebra, basically, and I hope the Lieutenant Commander is having better progress with his expertise. There does seem to be a pattern to the zones affected – if we can get in low orbit, we will be past any such zone. Given the overlapping fields the gravity lab has found so far, I cannot see how something of _Simurgh's_ mass can pass – and no shuttle, even cloaked, could make it through that warzone."

"Well, maybe the Terrans will have as bad luck as we are against the Heralds, so it'll only be one fleet," Tovan suggested.

"I suspect the Heralds are aiming at items ahead and behind in time to the point they cannot concentrate firepower – they certainly have instantaneous computer response going through gateways, so it must affect their systems similar to the Iconians themselves," An'riel said, "Or the Mirror ships would already be dead, or reverted to their own universe."

"I'm glad we're not having to fight the future – it must be almost as much trouble for the Terrans. What do you think they're after?" Toven asked.

"Weapons," An'riel said automatically. "I am very glad they seem to be the dark mirror that only the Federation has to bear, and we have not encountered ourselves."

"I've heard their Vulcans make the ones the Tal Shiar used to parade look downright cuddly," Tovan said. The two looked down at that – the show trials had never been pretty.

"I cannot even imagine what culture developed on as harsh a world as Vulcan, in a universe where history answers brutality is the solution to all problems and inconveniences. Imagine the old cycles, never written, or the great debates that led to our Exodus simply being blood on the sands of Vulcan's Forge," An'riel said, a bit saddened at the thought.

"Feeling poetic?" Tovan said.

She smiled a little at that, "Our bolthole inspires such… prominences I suppose, but I suppose I should let you finish that – it's even worst cold." The rest of the lunch passed with more discussions on personnel and the rest of minor ship business.

Tervan almost hit his rough time estimate – he was faster by fifteen minutes than his four hour estimate. As he'd suspected, a fractal pattern of dimensional breaches and quasi-time. Complicated, even dangerous to risk unleashing, but it was still the safest form of temporal incursion – a relative scale, of course, that registered firing a phaser at a warp core as safe.

But it also allowed the closest thing to 'trench warfare' in space – delaying any attack, forcing energy to be extended exceeding that of the defenders. The researchers had sought hope and bought time for themselves. And, via the Republic, Starfleet would deliver on its assigned duties, per normal.

Admiral seh'Virinat and her bridge crew were looking appropriately impressed as he detailed a path through the quantum distortions, preventing any risk of collision with themselves. The risk profile was higher than he'd like, and factors like the energies of a cloaking field distorting nearby space occupied his fears, but he'd laid the trail of breadcrumbs even an ex-terrorist could follow.

"This is minimal distance for day-side, which the lab will be on for at least two more hours given the planet's rotation. A straight-line path from the sun for ease of calculation and minimal tangential distortion. I recalled our plan was to hide in the inner system," Tervan said, "Unless we need to adjust for a gas giant's magnetic field or the like?"

"Oh, we are definitely in the inner system, Lieutenant Commander," the Admiral said, sounding delighted. "And the minimal plan is perfect, since we are currently on that vector."

"I beg your pardon?" Tervan asked. The Trill security chief was looking a bit apologetic, and the non-Federation team members seemed to be looking at their leader with tolerant patience.

"The sun, Lieutenant Commander. _Simurgh_ is currently under cloak in an evasive pattern within the stellar corona of the system primary," seh'Virinat said. "Even if they had gotten a good enough read to recognize our class to expect this, our power output is certainly obscured."

Tervan was finally stunned into silence, hadn't expected to have this handed for his final report on a silver platter. She was insane, sending 600 people plunging into a stellar furnace. The fact they were, apparently, quite comfortable was beside the point. Starfleet navigation regulations were surprisingly explicit on this point.

"It has the advantage of daring," he somehow managed to say.

The Trill said, "If it makes you feel better, Commander, we've survived this before, in a much worse state of repair."

The Admiral opened her mouth to reply, but her exec said first. "Honestly, we haven't leapt blindly through gateways or boarded any active Borg ships yet, so this is pretty routine."

"Oh, for the good loyal soldiers of the Empire of yester-year," the Admiral said, with a smile. "And the day remains young – but before they finally mutiny, we should be able to get into low orbit. But seriously…" her smile faded, "Are there any special approach codes or material to consider for evacuation? I recommend pattern enhancers, of course."

"Just one material– antimatter," Tervan said, "We cannot leave the dimensional bridge powering the Manheim Effect operational, and we have no idea of the state of the lab's staff. Its effects can spread with potentially disastrous effects to the nearby sectors. Antimatter is the easiest way to collapse an active dimensional transit. We'll need medical teams as well – even given shielding, quantum duplication can cause severe stress and hallucination in most sentients. Even below the zones, I recommend no more than forty-five minutes exposure."

"How much antimatter?" the Admiral asked. "We will certainly need pattern enhancers, then." Active containment systems were tricky to beam at best.

"I can rig up a distribution system to go with a storage cell," the harsh-looking Reman engineer offered. "Do we just need a detonator, or?"

"Simply introducing it, even shielded, is sufficient, though being able to adjust the quantity will be useful. Android crewmen would be ideal, positrons suffer less from the distortion compared to organic neural networks," Tervan said.

"We will need some of your engineering crew, then, Veril," the Admiral said. The Reman nodded.

Tervan said, "I think that should be all – antimatter dispensing… and any extra will be useful since we should probably scuttle the lab." The admiral nodded acquiescence. "And as long as the maneuver pattern is followed, we should stay within tolerances."

"All right, then join us on the bridge, Commander?" the admiral said.

 _Nothing left but the action_ , An'riel though as she settled on the bridge. Her crew was ready – medical teams were standing by, and nothing left but flying through a driving battle and hoping their cloak management was better than the Herald sensor teams.

Tervan was waiting in the additional seat – monitoring his plans – right now, he was just running probability models. Even two fleets tearing each other to pieces were far too insignificant to register next to the awesome power of a star.

But a star was predictable – easily calculated and compensated for – running metaphasic fields even through a light cloak. Directed antiprotons were, from a selfishly humanoid perspective, far more destructive.

"Helm, take us up – begin discharging thermal capacitors," An'riel directed. "Configure shields to full combat configuration at twenty million kilometers. Plot least-time intercept to originating point."

 _Simurgh_ hummed forward, discretely disposing of its heat and radiation build-up as it approached the battlezone, and battle it was, with whole squadrons tearing into each other, up to and including what looked like a _Jupiter_ -class dreadnought, done up in the garish Mirror yellows. Of course, from what their quantum scan showed, the fleets had been doubled and double again.

She studied the plans, and wished, again, she'd achieved her captaincy the normal way – oh, she was perfectly good at the administration side and keeping her crew trained, but she didn't have an Academy graduate's eye for patterns of maneuver, to slip around and use an enemy against themselves. What tricks she had were all about field interactions – perhaps more showy, but in some ways, more counterable, and she hoped they weren't ready for her today. The big Heralds weren't present, the dreadnaughts, and the Heralds tended to be less imaginative without their command platforms.

But even if the Heralds had only brought battleships – their weapons were certainly on average fiercer… if they could hit. Violet antiproton beams rushed out at shadows and phantoms, quantum mirrors and duplicates, striking what had vanished 'seconds' before, and unable to concentrate power long enough to burn through shielding.

The Mirror ships would win… but were fighting like a barbarian horde instead of a fleet, with concentrated attacks suddenly breaking apart into individual ships striking at weak opponents rather than keeping up the tempo. An'riel hissed, then backed up the tactical display. Yes, an _Intrepid_ had just launched a spread of torpedoes into an _Armitage_ in front of it, timed with a Herald torpedo strike.

"Tovan, grid alpha-four-beta, back ten seconds… can you check the timing?" An'riel said on a side channel. The answer came back.

"The _Intrepid_ started its launch before she could have known the Herald did. Elements, they've been fighting these before to know their patterns that well," Tovan said.

"Thank you Tovan," An'riel said politely, "I had to know." They didn't lack individually, clearly.

Tervan said, "If they were coordinating, they'd be dangerous."

 _Simurgh_ crept closer under cloak, defense officer counting off as sensor strength started to climb and the warbird diverted slightly. Finally, An'riel had to bring to a stop for them to try and refine their path… any closer and they risked errant torpedoes or diffracted beams spotting them out under cloak. Observing the fleet, An'riel wouldn't mind another AU or so between her and it.

"Admiral," Satra said, "Something… odd, I'm seeing some mild transponder frequency shifts on ships we're seeing the same transponder ID from… power fluctuations."

"My console," An'riel was saying as Tervan said 'On screen' by reflex. The two glanced briefly.

On the main holoviewer and her console, a dozen _Mirandas_ , or one, spread across a couple hundred kilometers, tagged with telemetry data – data that was subtly blurring. An'riel frowned, and called up a series of pop-up visuals. Most had the usual flat gold Terran Empire heraldry, like a Starfleet operations uniform left out in the sun. Two closest to the planet had a red livery instead, like a swath of iron sands.

Tervan said slowly, "The quantum refraction rate is getting worse – this is… bad for local causality. The Mirror forces might be accelerating it, with the weird traces – everything they impact isn't part of local time. And it's starting to have macro-scale effects. Admiral, I think our previous plot through the distortion zones will hold, but," he trailed off.

"We cannot try and improve our plot more then, we will want to use this sector again at some point," An'riel said. "I am sure you would like to improve the path more," Tervan nodded at this, "but I need to say, I am greatly impressed with the safe path you have managed, even if we may scrape some time jumps."

Tervan shook his head, "Honestly Admiral seh'Virinat, it was simply a matter of expertise and time," he said modestly. An'riel suspected he'd practiced, at some point.

"No, you have real talent," An'riel pressed on. "From our analysis of the distribution pattern of quantum duplication, I could not make the math work to get a point singularity like our core through without curving time too far to not suffer effects ourselves, let alone under cloak."

Tervan looked stricken, "What about your warp core? This is Dyson technology, isn't it?" His voice was starting to rise.

"This is a warbird using elements of technology from the Dyson Sphere – the Republic modified to use our normal singularity distribution system," An'riel said, more quietly. She pulled up the tactical plot and closed her eyes, bracing.

"Admiral, we can't get through without suffering temporal distortions," Tervan said, voice starting to get louder. "We cannot predict the effects of the Manheim effect, given the gateways and the extra-dimensional intruders."

"Commander, I need you to be quiet," she said, very quietly. Tervan stopped, sensing the steel. "Jalel, all hands please," she said, and waited for the connection. "All crew, this is the shipmaster – the increased Mirror Universe presence has forced a tactical change – we will be unable to safely penetrate under cloak. All hands brace for turbulence and possible temporal distortion effects." She closed the channel with a button press and, refocused her command channels to the bridge.

"Prepare to drop cloak – power to shields and engines, weapons reserved for point defense," she said, switching accent slightly for her 'extra-captainy' voice, as she privately thought of it. "Proton accelerators to full power – link navigational deflectors and accumulators to shields. Combat metaphasic mode to standby." She held a hand up as Tervan looked ready to speak. "Ready pre-planned maneuvers and start singularity charge after decloak."

"Prepare sensor scramble package, and keep our transponder off, perhaps they will be uncertain which fleet we are part of. Execute sixty seconds from my mark," she continued, and checked the tactical plot versus the distortions, and restrained a sigh. "Mark."

The bridge crew made acknowledgements, the helm Uhlan gripping the holographic controls so hard they shimmered. Then, with a faint shimmer sound, the impulse engines cut in, balanced to Veril's best ability, as the cloak dropped out. _Simurgh_ raced out, power dedicated to flight. From all they could tell, under the mess, was an area in low orbit not affected heavily by quantum duplication. If they survived to find it. They had at least three minutes

From the enemy perspective, another combat signal simply came into view on tactical plots already overloaded by enemies past, present, and future. The _Simurgh_ 's Dyson-built plating and engines were similar enough to the Herald power range to buy them a few extra seconds from them, meaning it was the Terrans who got the first move.

"Targeting lock!" Satra reported, " _Rhode Island_ class coming in on an approach vector!" The ship lurched as the enemy ship entered range, resolving to a single ship from three, phasers at extreme range diffracting off their shields, but they were approaching fast.

"Try and dissuade them, Tovan," An'riel said, gripping her seat. "Computer priority to shield reinforcement, keep cannon gimbals locked for now, let us not attract additional attention." The ship chirped as its polaron turrents opened in staccato bursts, the Terran science ship shrugging off the fire easily at long range.

"Fifteen seconds until Manheim-affected zones," Hiven said. The tactical board started to fuzz, multiple signals beginning to overwhelm the realtime updates. The _Caprimul_ -class was never intended to confront a full fleet without any other command support.

"Reduce tactical scanner range by fifty percent. Ready scramble package," An'riel said, "Set for timed detonation over impact forty degrees off our next planned course change." That was, more or less, the direction of the biggest concentration of ships.

The ship lurched again, a bang of a transient overload, something over-stressed. "And see if that ship will stay in our reality long enough to target its impulse coils, please," An'riel added. The deeper hum of a polaron beam array lashed out – guided far more accurately by the _Simurgh_ 's sensors than turret fire, it struck repeatedly at intercoolers and cascaded along the hull, polarized high-energy particles disrupting magnetic fields and dropping system efficiency. The Terran ship's impulse engines flared, cascading half-fused particles as its acceleration dropped. Angry at being dropped from its prey, it spat torpedoes, a classic double-shot.

Toven checked the warbook, "Incoming, look like normal photons – they should hit before we reach the Effect zone."

"Acknowledged," An'riel said, "Boost power to rear structural integrity field." The ship lurched, slightly – the crew rolling with the impact as the shields shrugged off base physical force with disdain, no matter it was a city-shattering blow.

Ahead was a spider's web of fire, multipled and then doubled again as she watched, impacting and resonating against ships that did not exist, or possibly only could exist. _Simurgh's_ own fiery heart was making space froth. Even as she watched, a warp core breach flashed onto the screen, some warp core moving out of alignment with its antimatter stream, or just dead by cold numbers. Space was getting even more crowded with debris beyond the planetary ring as pieces of hull rang out, super-positioned, and exploded.

She laughed, briefly to herself. Tervan looked, wild-eyed as they approached the zone. A few days ago, Obisek had warned her of the danger of sleep flying her into a moon. Here she was, doing it fully alert, and of her own free will. The Elements, and fate, had a sense of humor. Nothing in her life had ever convinced her otherwise.

And then they impacted into the zone, even into the 'less impacted' edges, and the effects were immediately obvious. An'riel could feel her vision blur slightly. Photons phased in and out of the same timestream as her, and a headache started immediately. Even through the halo, she could see Jalel and Satra go to work, handling the immediate triage.

The ship's structure hummed, going into a higher note than she'd ever heard it before – a vibratory wail. It wasn't helped as the shields began to ring from multiple impacts. An'riel didn't even think they were being aimed at yet. "Pull from port shields to fore shields," she ordered. The ship lurched, stomach-dropping for a moment, and then steadied.

"Temperature above maximum tolerance in rear port engine – trying to compensate. There's a plasma manifold feathering," Veril said.

"That _Rhode Island_ 's still on our tail," Tovan reported, "Targeting our engines."

"Emergency maneuvering – release damper reserves for RCS. Helm keep us on path!" An'riel said, grimacing. Everything in her instincts felt like the ship was coming apart around her, vibrating, gravity plating fluctuating slightly. _Simurgh_ 's status board was merely showing the caution lights of the early phases of a pitched battle, as spot-overloads and burn-throughs forced systems to reroute or to secondaries. She'd had faith in her ship and crew before, hopefully she was still _on_ her ship.

"Two minutes to go," Tervan reported, "If we can keep-" She made a shushing gesture at him again.

"Lieutenant Commander," she fairly hissed, "You and I need to have a talk on the criticality of ship's morale in combat shortly. I will have you removed if you continue these analysis, do you understand?" She turned to order a minor maneuvering change and looked back.

She neglected to say 'from the bridge', and from the Rigelian's suddenly stricken expression, he'd assumed the worse. She felt a surge of anger, having _anyone_ look at her like her or the Republic was Hakeev.

She had to put the little man out of her mind. Their shields were rapidly falling into tatters – and she was pretty sure she'd seen a _Simurgh_ come into existence and explode. "Reinforce shields," she said, "Activate protonic matrix," she ordered. The ship's shields flared, the Solanae particle accumulators dumping subspace-wrapped charged particles into the shielding, rapidly clearing the emitters, and then flaring in a shell of energy that could reinforce other ships. A nice support feature, right now, a bonus light show with no allies nearby.

Then as the shell expanded, the tactical board went white, _Simurgh_ suddenly shuddering as radiation alarms went off. "Some sort of x-ray shell cascade," Hiven said. Satra was standing as she was shouting at her medical crews from her station. "Never seen anything like it."

"Warp drive offline!" Veril said, "No cascade reaction! Core stable!" She cursed, "This board's making no sense right now."

"Maintain course," An'riel said, gritting her teeth.

"The particle density," Tervan said, then stopped. An'riel turned, forced herself to smile, and motioned for him to continue. "The proton lattice you're dumping… it's filled what energy bands were left in local space, and we're already seeing superpositioning – local space and nearby subspace bands are getting loaded with more energy than it can handle, with protons in multiple energy states and times filling it, it's fracturing out as x-rays. If those protons were all in normal space, I doubt they're be anything left nearby."

"Tovan, how is our path?" An'riel turned to ask.

"Cruisers at three-six mark eighty and five-six mark seventy got caught with their shields down," Tovan reported, "They've practically stopped moving and from these sensors readings, they're having electrical overloads across their hulls." Tovan stopped, then shook his head. "Even time-jumped Heralds can spot an immobile target – they're both gone. That _Rhode_ _Island_ stopped acceleration at the moment, checking"

"Something happened to local subspace – mass/energy fluctuations are collapsing our field lines, we're having some trouble keeping the driver coils up, but we'll get out and push if we have to," Veril promised, not hearing the ersatz leadership conference.

"Maintain course," An'riel ordered, then turned to the Rigelian again, and paused briefly – shaking her head. For a second, as a glimpse, a version of herself, bald, Borg implants and a grenade harness. "Commander," she said, "Would a purely normal space reaction also cascade in x-rays?" He nodded.

"Yes, Admiral, though that would be of purely academic interest – the overload of energy, from, say, dumping warp plasma would be at such frequencies no mobile structure could hope to be armored against the reaction at such proximity," Tervan said, and jumped briefly at something An'riel could not see. Two seconds later, the ship lurched from an antiproton hit.

"I can buy us enough distance, I think," An'riel said, and leaned back a little, seeing her hand leave traces in the air. If she could, at least, Elements willing, have a _Simurgh_ survive - whether it was 'hers' would be a question for the philosophically-inclined, but she could not let a pack of barbarians get whatever was hidden below.. She switched to the bridge-contact.

"Advanced metaphasic, stand-by, prepare to purge singularity charge," she said, "Given the nature of local time, map both together to computer control to my console." The acknowledgements came back, but slowly. Clocks showed…. Perhaps thirty seconds left through the zone, possibly, and thankfully they had avoided the mass of attention yet. The Heralds wouldn't see it coming.

"Admiral, a sun is one thing, but I don't think we can survive that," Tervan said quietly.

The ship lurched again, more insistently as rear shields registered repeated hits. "Admiral," Tovan said, "The _Rhode Island_ got its engines back under control – it's tracing our path. All of them, I think. Reading some sort of waveform, though the tactical sensors can't figure it out. Sending to Hiven."

The stocky Rhiannsu pulled up an additional screen, though he was fairly swamped, An'riel thought, through the glowing haze filling the air. "Admiral, their sensor beam polarity - looks like they're rigging an anti-tachyon pulse!"

That led to some exclamations around the bridge, and An'riel raised her voice over it, "Full metaphasic now – cancel previous charge command, activate singularity jump – get us through now, Veril. Reactivate cloak after jump."

For one second, An'riel felt herself hanging still, the universe pausing between heart-beats. Her eyes swam, seeing a dozen bridges overlaid. Then came the lurch as their singularity core shifted – forming a brief wormhole. She patted the chair armrest affectionately as she dared to breathe again, with her other arm pulling up the rear-view.

The point-mass left behind crackled, as with lightning despite being in the depths of space. Colors spilled from it, an aurora writhing in space.

Then the _Rhode Island_ fired a coruscating pulse from its main deflector. It impacted against the singularity. Colors spilled from it in waves, cascading across local time, colors An'riel had no name for, she wasn't sure they were even from the universe. Anti-tachyons washed over them… but the effect was minimal against them – it was instead, reminding this universe that certain things _didn't belong_ in a cascade wave. The Terran ships seemed to recede into themselves, shrinking with distance despite not moving as they left.

"Cloak us," she remembered croaking, later. Evidently they had – they were not destroyed as the only target for the Heralds. Satra left the bridge in a stumbling run, heading to surgery.

"Warp drive automatics were tripped, investigating," Veril said. "Main core operational, EPS taps at thirty percent. Cloak maintained – weapons are off-line," she said. And the young Reman double-checked her readouts. "Admiral, port nacelle crew is reporting a breach, but no leakage – still inspecting."

"If we can cease maneuver we can send a work bee," An'riel said, thinking. Why would a Mirror ship send _themselves_ back? She pulled the sensor records of this reality up on her console, and motioned to Tervan to take a look as she checked on ship business.

"Heralds sending out concentrated scanning pulses," Hiven said. "Reflecting off the rings and the distortion. Heralds are backing out of orbit."

"Bring us closer to the planet if you can," An'riel said, "Thrusters only." The impulse engines had taken some hits they knew about, at least she thought they had. Medical reports started to come in as sections clamored for emergency aid, and several minutes passed with people talking in low voices, trying to amplify stealth through force of will as they checked the ship.

"Capital ships gating out," Hiven said, and the bridge relaxed. "Other ships moving to picket locations. I think… they may be dropping warning buoys, but I'm not getting a read on passive."

"Maintain cloak," she said, "Warp drive status?"

"Admiral," Veril said slowly, "A seventeen square meter section of the outer nacelle armor housing appears to be gone. From the shape, it appears it was replaced by the cowling of a _Harpia_ -class destroyer, and lacking the proper support structures, torn away. Unable to judge total penetration of the effect. We've lost one of the quantum slipstream emitters in the change." Tovan gave a low whistle.

"What about the warp coils?" An'riel asked. Those had to be finely balanced. If they were suddenly from a universe where _Simurgh_ was one of its sister classes…

"We need to keep warp drive off line and check – I've delegated teams, it'll be a few hours. We can fabricate replacements," the Reman said.

Tervan added more bad news. "Admiral, there's some subspace harmonics laid on the wave… I think the Mirror science ship used our path to direct a transporter beam down. I can't say if they're successful, these records are a little fragmented, but they at least attempted it. Given the state of our ship, I would like to recommend the transporter over a cloaked shuttle in case they were damaged"

"I agree, speed may be of the essence," An'riel said. "We must use a contingency plan – prepare security teams and command crew for away team. Have EV suits, the climbing gear, the antimatter dispersal team, and medical supplies ready in transporter rooms one and three." She stood and staggered – her balance wasn't there yet apparently.

"Which security teams," Jalel said slowly.

An'riel gripped her console, "Whichever among us can be medically cleared."  
*

Tervan was checked out on EV equipment of course. It was part of the Academy curriculum – and he'd gone through on the days before it was accelerated during the Klingon war. He'd naturally volunteered to come, and the Admiral had pulled him into a separate turbolift to discuss.

She was still looking pale. He wondered what he'd seen. He'd seen a younger version of himself, briefly, laughing – a plasma conduit exploding out of the ceiling… glimpses only, hazy overlays, and the Romulan neurological system was a bit more sensitive, from their high-gravity forebears.

She'd gripped the rail while she talked. "Commander, I do not know how everything goes in Starfleet, and I admit that my course into the Republic military has been highly irregular. Please bear that in mind." She waited for Tervan to nod. "Good," she said, then her voice sharpened. "Elements above and below us, were you _out of your mind?_ "

"Admiral – my apologies for miscalculating for the ship," he said, somewhat stunned. She thought _he_ was crazy? There was no scale to measure just how close they'd come. A hair more material quantum positioning and the coils would have imploded.

She stood a bit straighter, "No – the situation was and is deteriorating. You are in charge of this mission, especially when we reach the facility. This may be different for my people, but you cannot, in command, dither. You can change your decisions, but you cannot ever, _ever_ tell crew, even officers, there is no path going forward. That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Retreat is fine, even commendable, doing nothing is _death_."

Tervan found himself gaping a little, "So you think the best path is to gamble? You would get us all killed! Far better to have information"

"As captains," she said, utterly serious, "We may be called upon that someday. There is certainly a perfect choice, would I be blessed to find it. In survey, there is time to find the right theory – in combat, I have never found such luxury. And keep in mind, we are entering a combat zone."

"Perhaps," Tervan said angrily. "A move from a bunch of crazed barbarians for some path we can't guess – they probably are all scrambled."

"Perhaps," An'riel echoed, and stood up. Apparently she'd tripped some control, he felt a brief brush of acceleration as the turbolift arrived, and she exited, leaving him trailing in her wake, damn her.

The transporter room was a short distance away, the common Romulan set-up of two pads on a single set of control consoles. The Romulan EV equipment was pretty typical, big and bulky. The pattern enhancers, he noted, were Starfleet issue. Several Romulans and Remans were suiting up, and members of An'riel's bridge crew were trickling in, along with, to his surprise, several Horta, wearing metal translator harnesses.

"Oh, those are my engineers," the harsh-faced Reman engineering officer said. "Great around radiation, and real gourmands on finding structural faults. The Admiral found an egg clutch some Tal Shiar had started tormenting, and some of the kids ended up joining the Republic."

"And their brains are all semiconductor based; _Simurgh_ doesn't have any androids on board, so they're our best bet if we run into… whatever that was, again," the admiral's female science officer said, moving hypospray vials into a pouch.

"Hopefully the staff were able to keep things under control to some degree," An'riel said, running a deionizer over a tricorder before strapping it back to her side. "Our entry may have disturbed it, but the situation should not be as," she stopped, thinking, " _tense_ as in orbit. Unfortunately, with Herald ships remaining, we cannot decloak, which limits our transporter capabilities. Commander Tervan, can you describe the layout?"

He shook himself and, accepting a plasma pistol from an armory officer, said, "The lab was built at the base of a cleft in a two-billion year old basalt flow, with a tunnel dug out by plasma borers to shield the habitats from interfering with the instrument clusters. The planet is class D, though notable with its ring structure – no atmosphere and blasted by radiation. Current staff listing is twenty-three. Base power is by a fusion reactor, and there's a small shuttle serving pad at the end of the tunnel. Two smaller access points for emergencies were also dug."

"The base had transporter relays established – we have their command codes, but we believe the Terran Empire did as well," Tervan continued, lecturing. "The Admiral and I _decided_ on using a cargo transporter pad at the end of the shuttle approach. Resolution will be sufficient using our transporters as the base, and the Admiral assures me the cloak can compensate for the signal from overhead."

An'riel added, "Once our warp drive is reestablished, our engineering team will check out and deploy a shuttle to serve as a command post. I would prefer not to use the pattern enhancers with Heralds in the area. We will assume all life support is compromised and staff hostile until we can confirm in the _Simurgh's_ science lab."

Tervan nodded, "We have no idea of the status of the crew. Their orders were to go to communication silence at any sign of trouble, and Starfleet would investigate. These people, their research – their legacy – is dependent upon us."

Admiral seh'Virinat spoke into the silence, "All teams confirm loadouts with leads. We deploy in five minutes."

They beamed down into a battered, lifeless landscape. An'riel shifted – trying to get used to the different gravity than ship plating. She'd spent several years with no goals beyond survival mining asteroids, and she wasn't sure what to make of her rockhound instincts sticking so well.

She looked around while ruminating. All of her crew, and Tervan, had made it down. They were standing in deep shadow, but her remote light showed the signs of advanced civilization. Heavy, well-insulated cabling ran along a smoothed section of an eon-old lava flow. The 'wall' was a perfectly circular cut-out, fifteen meters wide, in the rockface. A shuttle on antigravs could handle it easily, and a little more searching found a catwalk built along the base.

She flipped her tricorder out and stopped herself just in time from doing an active sweep. Who knew what was ahead, and she knew what was above. Passive scans didn't show much – dead rock, the base was so heavily shielded she barely saw a trace of heat. Any transporter traces would need to be walked over or actively scanned for in subspace.

She motioned instead and her group went forward. The walk was tense, but without incident. The heavy volcanic rock absorbed the light – being buried in Earth wasn't her favorite expression of the Elements by a long-shot, and this was dead rock, at that. Any spark of life was long gone from this planet.

Gingerly, they advanced until they saw light ahead – the shuttlepad. Behind her was the antimatter team, flanked by tense security crew with plasma rifles, and carrying some extra spatial charges. Tervan floated around the floater, watching it and monitoring its containment.

The shuttlepad was empty – just a larger cavern with two small shutlepods, a larger cargo shuttle and a lot of lights. An'riel held her party at the edge momentarily, but no obvious movement, or the electronics of EV suits.

The cavern itself had a transparent aluminum window to oversee operations, a large cargo-grade airlock, and gaping melted holes in each of the two shuttlepods front equipment modules and impulse nacelles; from An'riel's eye – some sort of phaser or _very_ finely tuned antiproton weapon.

She motioned the team leaders closer in and used the direct contact circuit. "Either the Empire's forces did manage to land or the local staff has gone mad. Commander Tervan, can you check your codes, please?" The Rigelian broke contact to go check the entry controls to the cargo lock. An'riel continued, "I am assuming Mirror forces, however. These attacks are accurate if not precise, and the warp-shuttle appears intact. Veril, take the engineering team, and check it for any more discrete sabotage, and pull copies of the log files from all of them."

The Reman grinned and saluted. An'riel motioned the security teams forward, and paused. The lights were shining with a halo… which would be fine if they were in atmosphere. She started forward twice as fast, and tapped Tervan on the shoulder.

"I'm working on it, some of the codes aren't responding correctly, and I can't raise anyone inside," Tervan said, "Also – I long for the day a decent EV glove is built."

"I believe the quantum distortion effects are localized as a defense here, or have been accelerated to affect the local area," An'riel said with studied calm. Tervan looked back at that and she pointed at the light.

"Okay the door still has power, let me try the high-level overrides," Tervan said. A few seconds passed and he said, "Okay – used the standard default threw security into installation mode – we'll have to go to the core to access it, but the doors will open." He tapped a control, and the airlock shifted open. He stepped forward, gesturing invitingly.

An'riel's tricorder went off just in time for her to grab him as a set of chroniton mines ignited in the airlock, their weird dance of strangely slowed light. No further surprises awaited them, and they were able to pressurize – no strange chemicals in the air or obvious contaminants.

Tervan was shaking slightly as he broke the seal on his helmet. "And the alarms will also go off that the security system has been tampered with," he said weakly. "Thank you, by the way."

The crew quickly stripped of EV suits. They were too bulky to work in, and worth removing whenever possible. Especially for combat.

"Those could have been put by the local staff – mines are easy to replicate and store," An'riel said reassuringly, as she gestured behind her shoulders for overwatch.

"We should head straight to the main labs, then," Tervan said. "From the shuttle bays, if we go straight through the cargo bays, it will reach the labs through a hatch."

"What about the computer core?" An'riel asked.

"The residential areas are down from the shuttle bay, and the maintenance spaces are through there," Tervan said, "If they aren't in the labs monitoring this." He tapped the controls to open the inner door.

 _If they're in condition to,_ An'riel added silently, watching her tricorder.

The door ground open, revealing a depressingly standard Federation prefabbed structure, with the tools and equipment for keeping a small group of shuttles in action. There was some sort of antique gold science tool airbrushed on the bulkhead to the cargo bays. Though after a minute counting the major gradiations she realized it was apparently some sort of Earth clock.

"A watch?" she said aloud, for the others benefit, "Someone at least, has a sense of humor."

Tervan shook his head, "By the Way, I'd prefer an hourglass. Less chauvinism." An'riel nodded, and he moved forward to open the door, commenting again. "With that duranium outer door, we should be safe to use short-range communications in here if there are," He paused, slightly dumbstruck as the door to the cargo bay opened, revealing a 'planet and dagger' Terran Empire insignia on the far wall.

An'riel consulted with Satra for a moment and said, "Some sort of nanite fast-deployment. Paint bomb," An'riel announced.

"Gang tagging," Satra added derisively.

"I have had quite enough of the Empire in our reality today," An'riel said, finishing adjustments on a plasma pistol on her belt. In wide-beam mode, the energy wave blackened and then flaked off the insignia while lightly singing the metal. The other members of her crew nodded.

"If we're all done with the obsession with symbols?" Tervan said, "We literally cannot tell how much time we have left." He'd been spending his time looking for booby traps in the room beyond. "And there's enough volatiles around there could be a bomb."

An'riel huffed slightly, but even as an Admiral, Tervan was the mission commander right now. "My apologies," she said simply. "Engineering crew, forward with the antimatter." The Hortas shuffled forward, pushing forward the antigrav pallet with the containment unit.

Tervan said approvingly, "Of course, they have no desire for suicide." He nodded at that, and motioned the engineering crew with him.

As the last of the Hortas crossed into the cargo bay, that's when the door slammed shut – an emergency release, and the chemical explosives welded the duranium shut.

An'riel hit her communicator in a hurry as Tovan and Veril opened up on the cargo hatch – but it was an exterior rated door, and, though it heated and had lightning crackle off it from the charged particles, withstood the blasts from sidearms easily.

Satra scanned, "All sorts of much here and dispersion from the quantum effects – I wouldn't know where to start cutting."

"Admiral seh'Virinat to Commander Tervan, can you hear me?" she said, scanning the door.

"Yes Admiral, this is Tervan," came back, "It doesn't look like we can reopen the door – we will proceed forward and have you meet us."

An'riel nodded impressed. He seemed to be blossoming under stress. "Understood – we will secure the surviving staff," she promised.

There was a slight pause, "Of course, and the records as well," Tervan replied.

The channel closed, "We will do our Duty to support as best we can – be alert for Empire troops," she ordered, "Close formation. Security team three as pickets here."

"Tervan to Admiral seh'Virinat," Tervan said again, "Please respond." The door had slammed shut and welded itself – and was now crackling with energy, unapproachable.

One of the Hortas spoke up in a tone that could only sound gravelly, despite Tervan's best efforts otherwise – many Hortas were technically Federation citizens. "Commander, there seems to be some sort of communication scrambling field effect – it may be related to the distortions.

Tervan came to a decision, "Then we cannot wait and hope the Admiral will blast her way through." He checked his tricorder, "We will have to get closer to map out the anomaly correctly to know how much to close the riff – let us proceed carefully; and hope we don't set off any more defensive traps."

The pathway was simple – standard Federation design. No traps went off immediately – there was more of the Terran graffiti, apparently quickly applied. The lights were on, thankfully – no shadows for anything to drop out of.

The hatch, thankfully, responded to commands – and a careful scan showed no well-meaning chemical explosives around it. The staff had gone mad, to risk tampering with the effect even more. The science labs were clear – no people, with a sort of ozone sterility, like it'd been recently abandoned. As he watched, one of the workstations went to power-save.

"The main lab space is just ahead," Tervan directed, and moved some of the labs out of the way to set the antimatter through. "We will need a field force of at least 4.7 centicochranes from our initial readings. It is bigger than our lives to prevent it from cascading."

"Yours at least," came a voice from ahead, male and absolutely smug. A Rigelian stepped forward… a mirror to his own, except in Terran Empire 'uniform'. "Drop the phaser," he advised, as a security team deployed into the doorway. "The people in this lab no longer remained of interest to me, and so they're gone – your task is to remain otherwise."

An'riel slid down the ladder into the staff quarters after Tovan motioned it was safe. It certainly wasn't clear – a dozen and a half staff were sitting listlessly on the beds, staring at them. Though they perked up as Jalel came down the ladder.

"They got through the hatch!?"

"Starfleet!" a few said, muttering, starting forward, one actually reaching to touch Jalel's uniform to make sure it was real. An'riel stiffened. Even with the staff, they weren't out of the woods. The scientist had missed on the first time, reaching forward to a point a few centimeters ahead of the Trill.

"How long has it been?" she said sympathetically.

The one who was touching Jalel stopped and looked at her, or rather, looked at her pistol. "Romulan? Are you a freighter crew, Vulcan?" she said. "You need to get us and your ship out of here! The Heralds started patrolling four days ago! We managed to manipulate spacetime to confuse them, but they'll be back!"

"The Heralds?" A dark-haired Bertazoid said, "What about the Empire?" He shuddered. "With their minds, and… we need antimatter! To stop it! We didn't have any on site. The visions," he finished, sinking down on a bed.

"No Vulcans," An'riel said gently, cautiously putting the pistol away. Their eyes followed it. "We are with the Republic – a reformed administration," An'riel wasn't sure how much they'd been paying attention to politics over the last year with the Borg, "The Federation asked us to assist when you missed your check-ins."

"Then you know," the woman and evident leader said, "About terrible things. We thought the fleets would come to save us before this. We didn't think it would get this bad, and then the Terrans came." She stopped, overcome.

"How many?" An'riel asked. "We have not encountered any yet. Please."

The Betazoid spoke, "They came a few hours ago – had our codes and psychocorders for everything else. _Everything_ else. Had us in the labs. Their leader came back a little while ago. They killed the senior staff, locked us in here. Was a Rigelian, will never forget his face."

Tovan and An'riel looked at each other. "Elements," Tovan said, "The universe is too big. It couldn't be. We're not that unlucky, are we?"

"The Mirror Universe seems to generally follow the history of ours, if twisted. Elements know our luck seems to come in cycles," An'riel said. She looked at the staff. She couldn't ask, and expect, their silence. "Communicator – relay my voice only. Commander Tervan, come in – security check."

"Five-tango-charlie-three-three-echo," came back almost instantaneously. The Betazoid recoiled.

"Him! It was him!" he said. Satra rushed and helped him sit before he fell. She pulled out a sedative ampoule and An'riel shook her head.

"We need to hear this," An'riel said gently. She tried to calm her thoughts – it may help the telepath.

"Thank you," he said, nodding at An'riel. "He came down," the man continued, "He knew the basics of the structure and our research… he wanted all our notes – but the rift started to get to him. It eats at you. Constantly, just eating." He stopped.

Satra held up the ampoule beseechingly. An'riel shook her head again.

"Sorry, so he left. He came back, with more, they killed the old crew too. Shouted something about failures. They've been pulling our data to portable format," he said, "Every bit of baseline data and the chronometric experiments." He was calming a little as he listed it out. An'riel motioned, and Satra, rolling her eyes, applied a sedative.

"I understand," An'riel said, "We will do our best to save everyone's lives remaining, reclaim the data, and stop the rift." She shook her ears, a brief ringing had started. "Unfortunately we cannot evacuate yet – there are still Herald ships in the area. Do you know how many?"

His eyes were beginning to flutter, "Forty at least… but some of them are dead – maybe fifteen? A dozen?" An'riel nodded.

"Primary team and secondary engineering team with us – we will secure the computer core and head to the labs," An'riel directed. "Hopefully Commander Tervan is on top of the situation."

Tervan called on his experience, patience, and Starfleet physiological training as he was hung upside down by his counterpart. The Hortas had gone quiet – inert. He had surrendered his tricorder, claiming it was a drone controller. Apparently the silicon lifeforms had been exterminated or stayed quiet in the Mirror Universe, they were treated as curiosities, not sentients.

His counterpart grabbed his shoulder, and he stiffened. But he was just bringing his rank pins into the light. "That's it? Not even flag rank? What _have_ you been doing with all your time?" He said dismissively. "What were you doing? Staring in a telescope all this time?"

"Of course!" Tervan said surprised. "Even in wartime, certain base astronomical observations need to be done; the foundations of future discoveries and knowledge. Doesn't your side know Starfleet more than that?"

The other Tervan made a dismissive noise, "What's good is studying if it doesn't get you somewhere? I thought about long-distant galaxies, but gravimetric and tachyon effects locally? That's power – that's subspace, finding the ships to hit for cash… and finding all the fat targets in your universe. And when I manage to find something that got cancelled in our universe that sounded dumb enough to go forward in this one… you guys hadn't even made any progress!"

"Your understanding of progress seems typical – and far from the Way," Tervan said, trying to stop from passing out. "You seek lucre and immediate satisfaction, until eventually stabbed in the back by someone below you. Your kind has no inclination to cultivate relationships."

The other stared at him then laughed, "Oh, I can't believe any me is that good with people. It's about hiding what you know – secrets, and their currency. My subordinates know they have no chance of returning home, or even understanding how to use what they're gaining here." He leaned forward, "So, unless you want to hang there, you'll tell me how to close the rift. And, I know you have others here, and I'd like to know more about them."

Tervan had to admit he had a point on relationships… as it galled him to admit his best efforts were in the hands of a Romulan madwoman. "We could only bring down a small team into such a dangerous situation," he lied, "Standard procedure would be to hold the access point – I can talk to them."

"Oh," his alternate said, "I've got that under control, naturally." He pulled out what Tervan thought were some cortical stimulators, briefly glancing at a console, shrugging, then moving on. "Now, sleep tight, let's see what we can get," he murmured, starting

Correction – his safety and everything valuable that may come out of the staff's efforts relied on a Romulan madwoman _disobeying_ him. He actually felt better at that. Also – his other self couldn't believe he'd be able or willing to lie to his face. That may be useful.

"Jalel, cover in front – others to flank," An'riel said, "Does anyone remember those old infantry training manuals?"

"From the old warbird?" Tovan asked, "With all the ways assuring humans were easily killed dupes of the Vulcans?" Jalel looked back a bit askance at that as the Rihannsu chuckled.

"Yes – if we follow them, our victory is totally assured," An'riel said dryly, "Standard tactics." She flipped up her tricorder, and prepped up some of its upgraded features, as she continued tracing the heat signatures of the Terrans outside the computer core.

They'd been adding some new features since the Iconian attack on New Romulus – and while An'riel wasn't sure what applied engineering was like in the Mirror Universe, but these thugs wouldn't get the chance to try any policy changes. Jalel was carrying one of the antiproton rifles recovered on New Romulus; on full auto, and tweaked with the best of Alliance research, he could stand with impunity in a hail of fire, the light-show and energy bleed from the rifle meant even well-aimed shots hit nothing.

With reinforcement from Veril's micro-generators supporting him, the rest were able to flank and take down the guards quickly. An'riel hadn't switched to a Herald weapon- she was intensely comfortable with plasma weapons, but she hadn't been adverse to a few new tricorder tricks – the photonic overload wasn't quite as good on the shields as a tachyon harmonic, but the force-field/energy pulse combo disrupted their weapons – which Jalel always appreciated – and dazzled them even more.

That said – they took some killing. "They have definitely been upgrading their shields on the other side of reality," An'riel said, "Make sure we have recordings – Starfleet will want this." The others nodded, and entered the computer core room.

She found an access port and went to work – she had Tervan's access codes, but those had been compromised, so she didn't bother. What she did have, were Intelligence's latest digests on computer security systems, some very nasty intrusion virii, and a lot of experience at this sort of thing. She was going to have to take a risk.

"If Tervan does not have his counterpart occupied, he may be able to shut down life support or worse at this point," she warned. "Stand ready if there is something unexpected in the security system."

The process went well, but she did trip an alert program briefly. For several tense seconds the room was quiet as she typed. Finally she relaxed, and her crew did as well. "We may not be free – ready for attacker when we go through the door," she warned, "There were several seconds that could have appeared on a security alert. Every Tervan is meticulous, I suppose, no one usually bothers flagging those log files. But clearing him out and reinitializing security."

"That said, if he was that meticulous, let's check for good old paranoia in any organization with security officers" An'riel said, "Ah – yes, security camera feed over his own men, already flagged. Tovan, take a look, let us get the target zones set up. Jalel, coordinate with the group securing the shuttle workspace." The security officers nodded.

"Set to low burn – we need to avoid exciting the rift and we need to see compare to see if the data core was compromised," she finished, face set. "Let us finish this."

*  
"Seriously, deep space observation? That was your dissertation?" the alternate him laughed agtain, which Tervan was starting to get annoyed by. He tried to shift, but there was no comfortable position upside down – he admired the Hortas' granite patience.

"Did you at least take knifework as an elective? Anything useful?" his mirror counterpart continued. After longer observation, he detected signs of old scars, but only a Rigelian would be able to see it past the deep natural grooves. Tervan found his face grabbed again. "Now that I see it – maybe I should grow a beard, at least," he mused, "Add some distinguishment."

The console briefly chimed, "The phoenix is headed to the sun," Tervan saw – printed upside down, appear on it briefly. His alternate turned, and Tervan realized he had to act on instinct.

"If you want to be distinguished as an individual," Tervan wheezed, jerking away, "Then you need to close the rift – we brought antimatter. I can tell you exactly how to destroy it safely."

"No," the other Tervan said, "I don't think so. Your forces are out of this sector – you brought only a few drones and a security team. You're far too weak and desperate to possibly be trusted."

"This is bigger than us!" Tervan said, trying to get more air in his lungs and not throw up. "I'm fine with sharing the data – the temporal constraints in your universe are different by definition, their only interest is scientific curiosity! The rift will start destabilizing time across-"

'destabilzing time across space!" he continued, after the discontinuity. "See!" he said desperately, shaking his head.

"Your space, not mine," Tervan turned to his crew. "Head to the computer core, there's nothing valuable for the Emperor in this," he inclined his head disdainfully, "head."

The… goons, Tervan supposed, though some were in science blue and operations gold, gave a fist-on-chest salute and turned to leave the glowing pillar of the rift and headed towards the door. The hatch slid open with a hiss… revealing five angry Romulans accompanied by a small host of field equipment Tervan couldn't identify.

"Go!" he wheezed – and the Hortas came into life, filling the air with the sting of acid as they rumbled to catch the guards from behind. Tervan's alternate had better trained reflexes than he did – and attracted by the sound he opened fire.

Hortas' silicon structure was so different from humanoid that stun settings had little effect, famously. Terran phasers apparently didn't come set to stun by default – Tervan took two out in a horrible inadesence before the plasma beams from An'riel's team forced him to duck behind a console for cover. It gave its life in a shower of sparks.

"Fine then," Tervan's alternate said, and with brave daring, rushed to a bench, picking up a handful of isolinear chips. Tapping his tricorder, he shimmered away in transporter effect.

His team did not. They died, and not quickly – Tervan's guards had good shields and armor, and it slowed, horribly, the effect of plasma fire and the remaining Hortas' acid. Stone-faced after the last one fell, An'riel looked at Satra, who shook her head, and she set about the necessary business herself. That done, she went to Tervan, and contemplated her pistol briefly, before shaking her head and motioning her security officers over before undoing the knot.

"Our space indeed," she said, and gestured to the antimatter. "Commander, would you do the honors?"

Cleanup after that was long and tedious. Even without the pressure of time on their nerves, the Heralds provided plenty of them own, and even a small evacuation entirely under cloak took a long time when conducted by shuttlecraft.

All that was left was the trip back, a report, and then on to Kyana for the grand strike. But especially the report.

"Satra believes that all the staff that survived will live. In my estimation," An'riel was saying to Tervan, "Perhaps sixteen of the scientists will be in shape to rehabilitate successfully to return to their careers after living so long in macro-scale quantum uncertainty. And the data was recovered. May it prove worth the cost."

"Considering the length they were under attack," Tervan said, "Most would consider it a good exchange."

"As your counterpart noted," An'riel said darkly, "This is baseline data. It took a very fine crew and an excellent ship off the battle line or responses for a week at a time when we have too few ships available to protect our colonies. We saved sixteen, but I lost two crewmembers in the ground crew, and five more were lost – even brief exchanges can cost lives, Commander. Not to mention how much the Undine have been losing to the Elachi."

"And if it was valuable?" Tervan burst out.

"Then this was a small price to pay, of course, and worth all our risks, and the mistakes we all made," An'riel said, smiling tiredly. "That is how command goes, of course – Lieutenant Commander. And it will go on tomorrow."

"We could have died – without even knowing how, the warp coils collapsing," Tervan said. "How do you live with that?"

"Experience, primarily," An'riel said. "Many people have tried to kill me, some of them even for personal reasons, sadly. The Elements have protected me and most of my crew so far, and I endeavor to prove worthy of such. Thinking as fast as I can and acting like I have a plan afterward is a large part of it," she admitted.

Tervan shook his head, and then stood up. "It's over for now, and I can get back to Starfleet." An'riel could hear the _away from madmen_ but did not comment.

She let him leave the room, without dismissal – she didn't – couldn't – run a tight ship, and it was still his mission. And whoever selected someone so unready… now they had that person with a commando mission on their docket and could certainly advance them up the ranks safely, whatever patron games were being played while the galaxy burned.

An'riel went back to finishing her report. _Simurgh_ flew on, unbent and proud despite her newest wounds. The war continued.

Ended up bigger than I thought. Hope people enjoyed it! Please read and review!


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